


Fool’s Gold

by FromFanToStan



Category: One Direction (Band), zayn malik - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergent, First Time, Fix-it Fic Eventually, M/M, smut with feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-04 10:50:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16345358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FromFanToStan/pseuds/FromFanToStan
Summary: I have always been curious what caused Zayn to leave 1D so abruptly, his subsequent alienation from the band and music that had seemed to make him happy most of his time with them, and Harry’s role in all of it. This is obviously pure fiction, just me wondering what made sense and how Zarry might have evolved and devolved. Complete.





	1. Chapter 1

###  **Chapter 1**

_I’m like a crow on a wire  
You’re the shining distraction that makes me fly home_

 

 **March 21,2015**  
It had been two days since Zayn had come through the gate of the expensive yet sparsely furnished townhouse he theoretically shared with Perrie. In two days, his bag was still sitting just inside the front door. 

He had texted his mum on the morning of day two after sixteen, and he counted them, sixteen texts and five phone calls, to say, I’m alright, I’m exhausted, I can’t really talk about anything yet. In two days the only person he had spoken to was his supplier of premium weed. 

Perrie was wisely giving him time, but Zayn felt lonely and left behind, even if he had been the one to do the leaving. He had been so determined to get away from Harry being hot and cold with him, driving him mad, from the hurt of again having his songs left off the album as “not really being our sort, but they’re good, really good, Zayner,” and from his own physical and emotional exhaustion. He ended the months of longing and bitterness that tied his stomach in knots so that he could barely eat. It was only after, after he was alone in the London house, the solicitation of his family unbearable, Perrie staying away, the details of how he broke his contract with Modest a snarl in his mind, that he had had a thought about where the leaving meant he was to go. 

****

The thing was, he and Harry, they never really defined what they were.

Zayn maybe was a little bitter about it, after all, despite how long he had been with Perrie, despite knowing he had no right to Harry, that they could talk about anything but what they felt for each other. It fucked up the way he left the band, his and Harry’s relationship, and it made him anxious and sad. It had its pleasures, but it was like eating cotton candy, sweet but unsubstantial, unsatisfying in the end. 

The previous night he had been watching fan videos of the OTRA tour, and yeah, he saw how for a day or two Harry seemed gutted, but he also saw how Harry pulled himself together with what looked like ease, and how he began to engage the crowd alone more, and how he looked performing, prancing across the stage, his designer shirts barely buttoned, the birds above his pecs and the moth below reminding the world, reminding all those little girls, of what he looked like mostly or wholly nude, because every fan had seen almost every inch of him and the most dedicated had seen the dick pic that Ed had always insisted Harry leaked himself. Exhibitionist bastard, Zayn thought, equally drawn and repelled as always.

Zayn watched video after video of Harry blowing kisses to the crowd, making jokes that seemed more innuendo than flirtation, throwing his head back in his signature “whale” spray. He cupped his crotch, moaned into the mic, and wiggled his hips like the Baby Jagger Zayn had always fondly accused him of being. The filthiness that Zayn thought belonged to him alone was on full display to the drooling crowds. Harry didn’t miss Zayn at all. It was so obvious, from this distance, that Harry no longer needed him, hadn’t done for a long time, but Zayn had been so lost in his own mind, in his struggle for identity, in the sheer impossibility of being other than himself but the equally impossible task of being who he was in the fake world of pop, so lost that he couldn’t see it, couldn’t see how much of a chameleon Harry had always been. Such an actor.

Louis tried to tell him when he first noticed that something was definitely up between Harry and Zayn, with his sharp eyes that missed so little. “Harry will fuck you up, Zayner. Don’t let him fool you. He has some seriously fucked up issues with men. Daddy issues,” he whispered, gesturing with an index finger to his temple. “Never fall in love with a boy with daddy issues.”

Zayn had protested at the time that he was most certainly not in love with Harry, had poked Louis in the stomach and slung an elbow into his side, because nothing was going on. Jesus. It wasn’t that kind of relationship. “Well,” shrugged Louis, “just in case you do start having feelings, don’t.” 

 

They were right, the lads, he wore his heart on his sleeve, and most of his decisions were made emotionally, not like Harry with his cool calculation, nor Liam with his practicality, nor Niall, who would always go along to get along, nor even Louis, who was, after Harry had turned away from him, his best mate in the band. Louis never made decisions involving money without looking out for himself, without being smart. He was shrewd and realistic about himself, about the band, and about the future. He always had been. It was why Louis was more the leader, if there had ever been one, than Liam. He was the first to see who Harry was going to become and what it meant for the rest of them. Louis would never have done what Zayn did, even if he hid an equal disdain for the pop bubble they had been sucked into and a similar attraction to Harry, not that any of them resisted Harry, not really. He could allow to himself that Louis had loved Harry first, before he loved anyone else in this crew of boys brought together entirely for their potential marketability to young girls.

For his part, Zayn had loved all his boys; he was affectionate with all of them, he had revelled in the masculinity of being in the band if not in the music they played, in being surrounded by the musk of boys, the pointed teasing, the rough-housing, the lack of boundaries. After living so much and so closely with females all his life, he relied on the company of women but it was a relief to be away from them, from all they left unsaid, from the smell of powder and the ease with which they were offended. It had taken him some time to become comfortable with being around boys so much, but that had been true for them all, and once they relaxed into it, an exuberance had taken over, joy in letting loose had taken over, even for Liam, the most cautious of them all. 

He found himself at various times drawn more to one than another, feeling especially fond, especially inclined to be physical, even flirty, with this one or that. All the boys were beautiful in their own way. Even if he loved women, and of course he did, he had allowed himself for the first time in his life to appreciate male beauty too, to notice how blue Niall and Louis’ eyes were, how ripped Liam became, how long and lean Harry looked in his skintight jeans. He took pleasure in their beauty; it was part of his fondness, part of why he couldn’t keep his hands off of them.

For their part, they teased him for being vain, for having movie star looks, but at the same time they would on occasion look at him and shake their heads, pretending for the sake of a good ribbing that he wasn’t spectacular at pulling and didn’t know it quite well. “You fucker,” they would say. “You have no idea, do you? Girls just melt at the sight of you. You could stop talking. Fact is, you probably should stop talking, because all you can do is fuck it up, with your ramblings about comics and what not. Stop talking, Zayn!” 

Only Harry never teased him. Always, in his disarming way, Harry would say in front of anyone how pretty Zayn was, how much he loved his cheekbones or his eyebrows, and Zayn in turn became equally frank in praising Harry’s curls, his green eyes, his dimples. That was the first brick in the foundation of their bond, this honest appreciation of each other’s beauty. 

And so, in their boy way, his boys had helped him become confident in his looks and most of all in his voice, genuflecting at least somewhat sincerely when he hit his high notes, muttering in his ear “what the fuck, man, you nailed that.” Because they were boys, Zayn knew that a compliment was really a compliment, because for the most part they kept each other grounded, they saw every weakness and exploited it, they loved taking the piss if they thought any one of them was harboring any delusions of grandeur. Sometimes they could hurt each other’s feelings, especially Harry’s, because in the early days, the baby of the band hadn’t known what to make of the rest of them, with their working class bluntness. Harry had always been around girls, and if his mum had raised him to have manners and to be respectful, she had also shielded him from harm, Gemma too, kept him from knowing himself as well as he might have done. 

And even if his and Harry’s friendship had been broken for months, and even if he had kept himself to himself from the other boys to avoid any embarrassing conversations that might be lurking, he missed all the boys now that they weren’t around, and most of all he missed Harry, powerless to prevent it, because even near the end, when Harry had for the most part stopped coming to him, even on stage, he could still break his silence, he could still look at Zayn sometimes in the old way, as though Zayn were something special, something that Harry couldn’t believe was real. Harry could still notice that Zayn was quieter than usual, throw an arm around him, mutter in his low, slow way, “Hey, you ok?” And then he would get distracted, would bounce away before Zayn could answer, not that he would have known what to say. It was always that way for them. Harry helped Zayn to loosen up, to enjoy being famous, and Zayn helped Harry to focus, to moderate his manic desire to swallow up whole everything on offer. For a long time, that had been another brick in the foundation of their bond, maybe its cornerstone.

The worst of it was that Zayn missed Harry’s physicality. Until they were well and truly over, until the loss of Harry’s regard had become a reality and not just a suspicion, if Harry were around, Zayn never felt lonely, because Harry always could tell when he was really grumpy and needed to be left alone and when he was just sort of grumpy and needed jollying out of it. Just as Zayn had distracted Harry from his early nerves by poking his dimple, Harry made Zayn forget that he hated the constant public display, the sense of always performing, even when not on stage, the need to seem so fucking cheerful all the time. Harry was the only one in the band who needed as much affection as Zayn did and who sought it with even less shame. Zayn looked forward to Harry sliding toward him on stage, grinning his little devilish grin that said he was about to do something he shouldn’t and was Zayn ready? He had always been a little embarrassed by Harry’s regard, but without it he was lost.

Louis understood this, had noticed when Zayn’s relationship with Harry had changed, had cooled, because Louis was always, always shrewd, from the very beginning. Louis had said to him one night at a club whose name Zayn couldn’t tell you, in a city like all the others, “The thing of it is, Zayn, isn’t it, that when Harry pays attention to you, there’s really nothing else quite like it. It’s hard to lose. That fucker.” He had sighed, laughed a bit bitterly, squeezed Zayn’s shoulder, and then shouted, “What does an international pop star have to do to get a drink in this place?” The moment had passed, but not the understanding.

The rest of the worst of it was, for most of his five years in the band, Zayn had been there for Harry. It gave him a purpose beyond learning his vocal parts, beyond showing up for events and interviews and filmings. At first Harry was his little brother, as much as Waliyha and Safaa were his younger sisters, and he was supposed to look out for his younger siblings. It was his job, to defend him from the other boys when they teased him too harshly or from interviewers who wanted to push Harry on the rumors that he was a ladies’ man. Later, defending Harry was habit. Zayn knew the truth of it, knew that Harry loved sex and being skin to skin, but he didn’t have Zayn’s lack of shame about going for what he wanted sexually. It was just part of Harry being Harry, having been indulged and adored by women all his life.

They both pulled girls, lots of them, especially during the first and second tours, but in spite of Harry’s considerable charm and good looks, and despite how he was among the five the one girls went for the most, always, and despite his serious game, Harry was hampered by his need to be the nice guy, to never look like he was just in it for the sex, or that he was using anyone, or that he was exactly what he was, a horny kid with unprecedented access to selfish, mind-blowing sex from basically everyone he met. Harry Styles needed to be nice, and that, as Zayn repeatedly told him, with his own working class bluntness, was not a prerequisite for getting your dick wet.

“Zayn. stahhhp!” Harry would whine. “I don’t want to disrespect women!”

Zayn found this quite hard to believe, since he was happy to gobble up whatever Zayn brought him. It was hard to see how a brat like Harry could be so charming, but it was a fact.

Zayn and Harry had gotten close, finally, last of all the boys, and being close was, from the start, about sex and desire. “Zayner, don’t tell anyone, but I’ve always had an easy go of it with girls. You understand--you’re so pretty,” he confessed with a combination of braggadocio and shyness. Harry had charisma and the look of a cherub, and he started getting propositioned when he was barely into his teens by girls much older than he, who could not keep their hands off him. This had been Harry’s world, all his life, that people wanted him, wanted to be around him, wanted to touch him, wanted to pet him and pamper him and make him feel good, because he just looked like he deserved it and would be sweet and grateful. Maybe Harry never fully understood this, but Zayn did. With his ability to be still and observe, he learned Harry Styles quite well, he thought. Zayn had learned that being touched was something Harry loved, something that stilled his restlessness and calmed the manic energy that would come out later on stage. His mother, on one of the trips to Holmes Chapel that Zayn made with Harry, after they were close, laughingly confided to him, “I saw how Harry’s charm and looks were going to smooth his path through life. I knew he was going to be spoiled rotten if I wasn’t careful. I had to teach him to be polite and considerate, and when he got a big head, even after you boys got famous with the band, I never held back from taken him down a peg.” 

Zayn had smiled at her knowingly, and she had added, “If he’s not a complete arse, he has his mother and sister to thank. We made him show courtesy and respect. Being given his gifts was a responsibility, not just a way to get his own way.” She sighed. “I don’t know if it’s possible to really succeed, though, with someone like Harry. He got in line twice when they were passing out charm, didn’t he? Sometimes I think we just taught him to hide his narcissism.”

“Nah, Anne, you did good with Harry,” he had reassured her. “You’d be proud of him to see how kind he is, really.” He didn’t add that she wasn’t completely wrong, because what could anyone really expect from a boy exposed to near constant temptation so young? He was better than Zayn would have been, had he been as cute a child, as extroverted and friendly, as charming. That was the word for Harry, wasn’t it: charming. He had charmed Simon Cowell, which seemed impossible, even if privately Zayn believed Simon liked Zayn better, else why would he have gone to that extra trouble for him during X Factor? Still, Harry couldn’t be resisted, and if anyone tried he only saw it as a challenge.

His first sexual experience, he told Zayn one night when both had had a great deal to drink, one of their first all nighters of drunken cuddling and sharing confidences, was with a friend of his mother’s. It was so joyous, the woman so wise and generous and so lovely--after all, he had a young mother, with young friends, especially from work--that he would forever after have a fondness for older women. The lads made fun of him for it, but in Harry’s heart of hearts, the place he revealed to Zayn with an openness that caught Zayn off guard completely, being himself so guarded, Harry treasured experience. As he said with an uncharacteristic bluntness, accompanied by a dimpled and innocent grin, an older woman was a far better fuck than the tween and teen girls that made up One Direction’s target demographic could ever hope to be. Such vulgar straightforwardness made Zayn feel, every time, that he was seeing the real Harry, and the words coming out of that rosebud mouth, in that sweetly childish face, gave Zayn a thrill that he resolutely tried not to think about. 

So yes, occasionally Harry allowed himself to be seduced by an older woman, and on those nights he didn’t return to the hotel or tour bus, and Zayn was left to his own devices, which sometimes included a wank into which images of Harry’s lips might have occasionally intruded. Zayn believed, contrary to all the evidence, since mixed in with Harry’s need to be nice was a flirtatiousness that he flung out in all directions, with no regard for age or gender, that Harry would be horrified if he knew that Zayn had had those thoughts about him. As was his habit, he kept both the thoughts and the belief about Harry’s horror to himself. Still, he sometimes fantasized that he told Harry he fancied him a little, and Harry was flattered by it. Harry was the most open boy in some ways Zayn had ever met, and they did talk about sex a lot, mostly while cuddling in bed, and mostly with a naked or near naked Harry nestled against Zayn’s side. 

After the first album came out, they couldn’t go anywhere without being recognized and causing a minor riot, so they were often as not left to their own company. It made them all close, it did, but later, after he had nothing but time to reflect on those years, Zayn would come to believe that their closeness had been basically unhealthy for them all. They knew each other’s smells, each other’s facial tics and nervous gestures, so that a natural introvert like Zayn had a harder and harder time keeping himself apart, as he so wanted to do.

And, yeah, because Harry loved older women who would do most of the work of propositioning and providing a comfortable location and more often than not riding a recumbent and relaxed Harry after giving him head, Zayn saw that he had not ever really learned how to move from chatting a girl up to fucking her. Older women did teach him to withhold ejaculation far beyond what was typical for a 17-year-old boy, another fact whispered drunkenly in bed into Zayn’s ear, Harry’s alcohol infused breath ruffling the hair on Zayn’s neck and causing involuntary shivers. Harry’s ability to draw in people of all ages and genders meant, even if Zayn did not ever say it out loud, that Harry was used to having a great deal done for him. 

Zayn himself did nothing to correct this attitude, since he found himself unable to deny Harry much of anything, especially since Harry’s open and frequent admiration was something Zayn found irresistible even after he came to expect it. He liked it when in the midst of a radio interview Harry said he’d have a crush on Zayn if he were a girl, but he had tried not to show it. He might have blushed a little, he thought, but after the interview he learned he had been rather more transparent. Harry grabbed him from behind as they were leaving the building to say, “I said if I were a _girl_ , Zayn! Don’t get weird about it.”

“I know. I heard you. I’m not being weird.”

“You’re being weird. Do you want to fuck me or something?”

“Harry, what the fuck? I’ve got a girlfriend. I’m straight.”

“Yeah, but we’re all a little gay, aren’t we?” Harry said with a smirk as he squeezed Zayn’s waist before pushing past him to grab Niall’s ass from behind. And so Zayn told himself that he was just kidding, Harry was always kidding, wasn’t he.

But by this time they were doing multi-night shows in all the big cities, the hysteria of their young audiences forcing an almost claustrophobic closeness that led him and Harry to grow accustomed to sleeping together and to drunken confidences of all sorts, in a sort of defense against the craziness that surrounded them. It seemed more or less natural for Zayn to arrange encounters for Harry and then by extension for himself, to take advantage of the plentiful offers of sex from the older end of their fan spectrum, and to handle the logistics of getting the girls into the hotels and into their beds. Since Zayn did all the arranging for the girls they never called groupies, it came also to seem natural that they wouldn’t disrupt their usual sleeping arrangements just to get off, and so over time and without discussion most of their sex lives transpired together, like their meals and their travel and their interviews and everything else about being a member of the phenomenon that was One Direction. If the other boys noticed, if they occasionally teased Harry about being in love with Zayn, since after all Zayn was pretty enough to be a girl, Zayn ignored it. He had bigger problems, didn’t he.

Sharing a hotel room meant that Zayn also knew a great deal about Harry as a lover. Zayn knew how Harry started out with kisses that sounded slow and sensual, how Harry whispered into a girl’s ear and bit her earlobe, how he kissed his way down her neck to her breasts and swirled his tongue around her nipples until she moaned, how he took his time and tongue, working his way down between her legs. Zayn knew that Harry had learned more from the older women he had bedded than just holding off ejaculating, because sometimes those girls had loud, quick orgasms just from Harry’s tongue, and when that happened, Harry didn’t wait for his girl to ride him but instead slammed into her while she was still coming. It seemed to excite him so much that he came minutes later. Zayn knew all this, and more.

Some nights the girls were faster than Harry and pulled him up from their sopping pussies to do their own dives onto Harry’s cock, their lips glistening with their own juices and saliva as their sexual satedness translated into what was often a great blow job. This Harry confided also, afterwards, when the girls had left. He and Harry would wipe themselves off, toss their tied off condoms in the direction of the trashcan, put on briefs, and settle into one of their beds to do a regular recap of the night. It never stopped amazing Zayn that Harry, sweet Harry, sexually generous Harry, could describe his sexual encounters with an almost clinical detachment, comparing breasts, especially nipples, and pussy lips and tightness and blow jobs to the point that Zayn would occasionally, on the excuse of needing a shower, have a quick wank while the water was running or after Harry had dozed off and was snoring lightly beside him, thinking of Harry’s slow voice and kiss-reddened lips murmuring salacious details, the memory still fresh of the sounds he made when orgasming. 

Zayn had learned to arrange his girl under him at an angle so that he could see Harry in bed, and this was something he did without thinking. He told himself that Harry knew his way around a woman’s body and he could learn a lot from him, but it wasn’t the girl or the technique he watched so much as it was Harry’s hands gripping a girl’s hair as she sucked him off or Harry’s ass clenching and relaxing as he slammed into his girl, or Harry’s cock appearing and disappearing inside some girl’s mouth, some girl they would never see again, because that was the unspoken rule, that they pulled and they were sweet afterwards, Harry insisted on it, and they would give tickets to the next night’s show if that was a thing, or they would take numbers they would never call. At least Zayn never called. Later he would learn that Harry broke that rule, just like he broke all the others. If later Harry was angry with Zayn for the engagement with Perrie, for breaking a rule that both would have denied existed, for letting a relationship get to the point of a commitment, he never said directly, even if he didn’t speak to Zayn much for a while and made rude jokes about it on talk shows. If after the announcement he was always hot and cold onstage and off, Zayn never complained. He knew it had gotten to be too much anyway. He knew that Louis in particular hadn’t liked it and had ragged on them both. “For fuck’s sake, you look like you’re fucking every chance you get!!” he complained more than once after a show. Because they weren’t doing anything at the time they both laughed it off. 

They weren’t. They never did, not fuck anyway. Almost never.

Yeah, Zayn had taken a bite from the candy thong he threw at Harry to put on. He found himself staring at Harry when he didn’t have to be singing, and they sometimes ground against each other, to fans’ delight and catcalls. They whispered to each other on stage; it was never anything important, but sometimes it was Harry saying, “Come to mine after, yeah?” Or it was Zayn saying, a little more audaciously, “Your ass looks great when you wear those boots and those jeans, Harry.” Or Zayn pinching Harry’s nipple. Or letting his hand slide from Harry’s shoulder to the curve of his ass. Or Harry draping himself over Zayn or tossing him a water bottle. The longing that never got beyond a cuddle and an arm slung over a waist in a hotel room seemed to play itself out on stage, and Zayn didn’t think of it, didn’t name it. Harry himself had said he wasn’t bisexual, even if he didn’t specify afterwards if that meant he was gay. Zayn knew he wasn’t. He had seen enough to know that Harry was straight. So was he.

 

 **Early August 2013**  
Zayn couldn’t be sure on which drunken night in LA it happened, only that they had already been touring forever and had collaborated on every day off with their co-writers for the third album. They were all exhausted and neither Harry nor Zayn wanted to go out on the prowl. They had gradually done less of it over the course of the tour. At first it was a few bad experiences with girls not wanting to sign the NDAs after having sex, which, to be fair, was something that Security was supposed to take care of before letting the girls on their floor, and then they were just so tired. Zayn in particular, after being Harry’s wingman for over 18 months, was tired of doing all the work of pulling. That’s what he told himself. It wasn’t that he had tired of hearing Harry pleasuring some random girl and himself rather than Zayn; it wasn’t that he wanted Harry for himself. He had Perrie, even if, of all the confidences he and Harry shared, she was the one thing they never discussed. 

It was just he liked raiding his mini-bar and taking all of it in a backpack to Harry’s room, and then getting drunk together on one of the beds. He liked their random conversations. He didn’t have to feel guilty about being unfaithful. He liked that Harry was real with him, and that he could be real in turn. He liked that they cuddled more without the girl-fucking first. It made the hotel rooms less generic when Harry’s personality and charisma filled them up. 

He wasn’t prepared for Harry’s question, not at all. They were in bed, having finished off the contents of both mini-bars, Zayn was mostly asleep as usual whenever prone, and Harry was draped over Zayn’s back as he sometimes liked to do when in his cups, but this time he whispered in Zayn’s ear, “Are you awake? Zaaayyynnnnn.”

Zayn was not in fact awake, not really, and so he grunted something unintelligible.

“Zaayynnnnnn.”

“What, Harry? I’m sleeping!”

“I’m horny.”

“Go have a wank in the bathroom.”

“Zaayynnnn, do it for me?”

“Fucking hell, Harry, you can’t do anything for yourself, can you? You’re such a brat.” 

By now Zayn was fully awake, aware that some line was being crossed, aware that he was afraid to cross it but that he also wanted to. All the wonder he felt for knowing the dirty mind that hid behind the angelic countenance, every memory of Harry moaning in pleasure, rushed in, moved him from having his back to Harry as usual to facing him, caused his hand to creep over to Harry’s waist with an intent that was new and thrilling. He saw Harry’s cock go from half-hard to straining, felt powerful that he hadn’t even touched him yet, only signalled that he would. His own cock stirred as well, under Harry’s steady, knowing gaze. He allowed his hand to slide from Harry’s waist, to caress the left side of the vee that lead down to his beautiful dick, always the source of some of his confidence, allowed himself to brush Harry’s pubes with the back of his hand, to stare up into that steady gaze with a look of his own.

“Please, Zayn. You’re teasing me. It hurts. I’m so horny. I’ve wanted this forever. If you were really my friend, you’d put that pretty mouth of yours on my dick right now. C’mon, suck me off. I’ll do you after. I’m good, I promise. You know I’ve done it before.”

And so Zayn did, helpless as usual against Harry’s pleading, let his left hand lightly stroke everywhere but where Harry wanted, moved his mouth from Harry’s neck to his nipples to lightly biting his hip before tentatively licking the head of Harry’s cock, pulling back the foreskin, stroking him a few times before allowing Harry to push his way in to Zayn’s mouth, moaning like Zayn’s mouth was the best pussy he had ever entered. Zayn concentrated on keeping his mouth sealed around Harry, swirling his tongue along the underside of his dick the way he liked it himself, providing suction, keeping his teeth away, relaxing his jaw so that Harry could keep thrusting further into Zayn’s mouth until he was nudging the back of his throat, and all of this was so demanding, such a task after all, that at last he forgot how transgressive this behavior was for him, forgot the borders that were being burned down, and just tried to do a good job.

It turned from work into pleasure after a time. Harry smelled clean and faintly of his body wash, and Zayn’s eyes were drawn again and again to the laurels that bracketed Harry’s vee, as they went in and out of focus, his ears full of Harry’s moans and his own hammering heartbeat, his mouth full of beautiful boy. It wasn’t long before his mouth was full of Harry’s come, and not knowing what else to do, he did what he most liked a girl to do and swallowed it all, sucking at Harry’s cock until he heard, dimly, Harry begging him to stop.

“Fucking hell, Zayner, if I’d known you were this good at sucking cock, I would have asked sooner,” Harry sighed. “That was amazing. I can’t believe you’ve never done that before.” Harry was so unapologetic, so matter of fact about having just violated every norm that Zayn thought had governed their relationship, that he didn’t feel as ashamed as he might have done. In the moment, he had laughed and said, “I think you said something about reciprocating, yeah? When is that going to happen?” 

Harry had allowed him the secret smile that he only ever gave him on stage, but the moment had passed, hadn’t it, and now that they were talking again normally, Zayn felt himself flush. “Nah, that’s alright, you were the one gagging for it. I’m going back to sleep.” With that he had turned over, made a brief promise to himself to think this through the next day, and slipped back into his favorite state, the drowsiness right before losing consciousness, only vaguely aware of Harry’s soft arm slipping around his waist as he pulled himself close behind him. He only partially heard Harry murmur, “I won’t forget. You know I never break a promise,” before he fell into a hard slumber, with the taste of Harry’s come still lingering, sweet-sour, in his mouth.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zayn continues to deal (or not deal) with the aftermath of his exit from 1D. This is REVISED from earlier today. I decided that even though I wish I had room for Perrie's character, this is really about Zayn and Harry. She's been relegated back to her small side role. Otherwise, lots of angst ahead. The course of Zarry love never did run smooth. As always, these are fictional characters that just happen to look exactly like the real life people mentioned within. Funny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is moving a bit faster than I thought it would originally. Right now it looks like Chapter 3 will be posted Sunday, and then I will probably be posting weekly after that.

****

###  **Chapter 2**

_I'm the first to admit that I'm reckless_

_I get lost in your beauty and I can't see_

_Two feet in front of me_

  
**March 22, 2015**

In his two days back in London, Zayn had started smoking with his morning tea and maintaining a certain buzz level all day, which was how he managed to stay reasonably sane at first. Then again, being high always made him nostalgic and emotional so maybe not the best choice?

He found himself thinking of Harry of course, as he always seemed to do when at loose ends, and remembering the morning after that first night, waking alone but being ok with it. It was normal. Zayn could sleep through anything, and Harry could wake up, shower, go back to his room, go for a run, go to breakfast, do anything really, and Zayn would never know the difference. Sometimes he would only see him when they were getting on the bus to go to the venue. They were mates; they did what mates do. Zayn scratched himself idly, feeling a bit of the morning after, too many drinks, forgetting to brush his teeth again, falling asleep with the taste of come in his throat. He thought about how he helped Harry the night before, how he was a good friend to him as always, how it was just a one off they didn’t need to talk about. He was okay with this part too.

He had almost dozed off again when he heard the snick of the key card sliding into the slot and the door softly opening. “Zayn. Are you still asleep? Can I wake you?” Harry.

“Yeah, I’m not really asleep, just being lazy. Suppose you’ve already been to the gym and had brekkies, yeah? Where’s everybody else? When do we have to leave?”

Harry didn’t answer, just unbuttoned his shirt, letting it drop to the floor off his arms. Zayn had just a minute to admire his torso, the play of muscle Harry had developed seemingly overnight, the way his random tats managed to look sexy and stupid at the same time, before Harry was stripping off his track pants to reveal naked boy underneath. He slid under the duvet, murmuring “I think there was a little matter of reciprocity to be settled” before nuzzling against Zayn’s neck, mouth and eyes soft.

“I’m gonna do what I do to a girl, Zayn,” Harry whispered in his low, thrilling voice. “I’m going to make you come with my mouth. You’re gonna love it, just wait. You don’t have to do anything.”

Harry was as good as his word. He sucked and bit at Zayn’s earlobe, whispering filth about how beautiful Zayn’s cock was and how pretty his mouth had looked swallowing his own the night before. He swiped his thumbs across Zayn’s cheekbones, brushed his lips against Zayn’s mouth too lightly to call a kiss, made his way down Zayn’s neck with his tongue. He stopped and swirled his tongue against each of Zayn’s nipples in turn, before asking him, “Are your nipples sensitive? Mine are, but sometimes boys aren’t.”

“I’m not going to ask how you know that, Haz,” Zayn panted. “But yeah, thanks for asking. Mine are pretty much just decorative.” They both laughed, but Harry promised, “We’ll see more about that later.”

“And here?” Harry whispered again, as he licked into Zayn’s navel. “Does that feel good?”

“Yeah, yeah. I like it, Harry. It feels good.”

“And here, Zayn?” Harry continued moving down, stopping to lick at Zayn’s inner thigh, allowing his warm breath to ghost over Zayn’s pubes. “Does it feel good here?”

By this time Zayn would have said yes to anything, so when Harry tilted Zayn’s thighs up and parted them, licking a stripe from the top of Zayn’s crack straight across his hole, when he returned to suck gently against the place no one had ever touched in tenderness, Zayn could only gasp and push his hands into Harry’s curly hair, moan as Harry swirled his tongue across Zayn’s perineum and against his balls before at last, Harry’s mouth was sliding over Zayn’s cock with a strength and suction that Zayn was pretty sure was better than anything he had ever felt before. Then there were no words as Zayn felt himself fall into the vortex of a desire that he could only dimly acknowledge. He was helpless again for Harry, unable to look down, afraid that if he did he would come on the spot at the sight of Harry’s lips swallowing him. In what seemed like seconds, Zayn managed to stutter out, “Harry, I’m gonna, I can’t…” before he was coming down Harry’s throat, and Harry swallowed for Zayn, waited for Zayn to stop shaking, kept sucking lightly on Zayn’s cock in the warmth of his mouth until Zayn at last begged him to stop.

When Zayn’s vision returned, he looked down at Harry, still between his legs but looking up at him with his knowing and steady gaze. “Good, babe? Did you like it?”

“Jesus, Harry. What do you think? You do that like you love it.”

“I do love it now, now that it’s you and me. We can do this again, yeah?”

“I guess, if you want to. Do you want to?”

“Of course I do. It feels so good. Do we need rules, though? I still want girls, don’t you?”

In fact, Zayn had been thinking that no, he didn’t want girls. He just wanted Harry’s greedy mouth on his cock and Harry’s slim fingers on his face, and Harry’s low voice in his ear, but since he couldn’t say that he said instead, “Yeah, sure. Should we say we’ll just do this when we don’t have the other?”

“Perfect. Now get up. We have to go for sound check in….” Harry pulled Zayn’s phone from the night table. “Shit! Half an hour.”

Zayn still remembered every second of that moment, the way the sun illuminated the green of Harry’s eyes as he gave Zayn one last look before throwing himself out of bed and into the day ahead, the tightness in his own belly as he accepted the fall that had already started, into what he couldn’t say, the sure knowledge that he had never been unfaithful to Perrie so much as he was in that moment.

The night after Harry and he broke their boundaries Zayn Skyped with Perrie. She was feeling down because Little Mix had had to cancel all their US dates due to poor ticket sales.

“I’m sorry, babe. You should have backed up 1D.” He was kidding, sort of, but he also knew that he needed Perrie around more. He was nervous about what was happening with Harry already; he couldn’t let himself think of it as a relationship. He knew Harry. He knew how easily bored he became, how quickly he lost interest when he thought someone had fallen for him. Look what had happened with Taylor.

“Yeah, that would have been something,” Perrie scoffed. “But y’know what, babe, our management has had an idea. I know it’s crazy, and of course we’d never do it, but they think you and I should get engaged. It’d be good publicity, for us at least, and I’d give you blow jobs for life, I guess. Think about it, ok?"

He thought for just a minute. The Harry problem would be resolved. They could be friends with benefits, right. He really liked Perrie, her good nature, her beautiful blue eyes, her ability to laugh at herself and at him, everything she’d put up with. He could do this.

“I don’t have to think, Perrie. Let’s do it.”

****

The last night in LA, Zayn was with Harry after a pretty wild night out partying. This part of the tour was over; they had a solid six week break with only the premieres of _This Is Us_ to call them back to work. They had already agreed to spend part of the time together in London, so even if they didn’t even have to ask each other; around 1 am they slipped away from all the glittery, flirting girls and boys to make their way back to the hotel. As soon as the door to Zayn’s room closed, Harry pinned him against it. “It feels like it’s been forever. Has it been forever, Z?”

“Harry, you’re such a horny fucker. It’s been two days, and I don’t know what you got up to last night.”

“I’ve been saving myself for you, Zayn. I’m gonna make you come even harder tonight, cuz now I know what you like. I’m a quick study, babe. C’mon, let’s get you out of all those stupid clothes. You looked so good tonight. Every time I looked over at you all I could think about was getting you alone, and guess what? We’re alone now.” Harry pulled Zayn’s tee shirt over his head before pinching his nipples, hard. “Does that do anything for you, Z?”

As a matter of fact, it did. Zayn had no idea he had a pain kink at all, but damned if Harry couldn’t worm his way into every nook and cranny of his sexual identity. Fuck.

“Yeah, Haz. It does something for me, most def. Do it again, though, so I can be sure,” Zayn laughed. Harry looked so serious. Was this the time to tell him about the engagement? Nah. Maybe in a little while.

Later, with the aircon turned down low, cuddling under the uniquely American luxury of a 1000-count top and bottom sheet, a thick, soft blanket, and a duvet, Zayn remembered the news he needed to share.

“Hey, babe, the weirdest thing. Perrie needs us to get engaged, I dunno, for publicity for Little Mix, so I said yeah, sure. I’ll take her shopping for rings when we get back to London. Do you think it’ll hurt the band? I didn’t run it past management or anything.”

Zayn felt Harry stiffen next to him. “Haz?” He looked up at Harry’s face, surprised to see him looking grim. “Harry. What’s the matter?”

“You just got engaged, and you didn’t think that was something maybe you could discuss with your best mate before you agreed to do it?”

“You just said it, Haz. My best mate. Would you ask me before you proposed to some girl?”

“But it’s not real, Zayn. You’ve always told me it’s not real.” Zayn was genuinely perplexed. He'd always had a girlfriend, real or not. Harry had had relationships too, if less intense than Zayn's. He and Harry had flirted on stage and had a bit of sex. It mattered to _Zayn_ , not Harry. 

“Yeah, well, it isn’t exactly. Perrie and I are close, even if we were set up for PR. I like her a lot, and she’s a good girl. She’s talented too. Little Mix deserve more of a break. It’s hard for girls, way harder than for us.” Zayn realized he was babbling a bit, floundering in the face of Harry’s steely gaze. Harry had never looked at him like that before.

He cut himself off, finally. A small but charged silence weighted the air as they absorbed this new, unfamiliar tension. "You fuck, don't you," Harry said finally."Of course you do. It's real; that's the only kind of relationship you have. I'm an idiot." With those bitter words, Harry threw back the covers, squeezed on his jeans and slung his shirt over his arms. Zayn had the chance to admire his stupid tattoos and toned torso briefly.

“Well. Congrats, I guess. Good for you, Zayn. I hope you and Perrie will be very happy. I think I’ll go pack, though, right? See you tomorrow at checkout.”

“Wait. Harry I…”

But Harry was out the door, and for the six weeks they were off he answered not one text or increasingly frantic call. He said, in fact, not one word to Zayn, unless it was absolutely necessary at the openings. Effectively and efficiently, Harry cut Zayn out of his life.

****

**March 23, 2015**

On day three of his “liberation” from 1D, Zayn still had not left the townhouse. He had, however, turned on his phone and checked his messages. Perrie.

_Zayn, we need to be seen out mgmt says call me_

Yeah. The shitstorm was about to hit anyway when the official announcement of his departure from the band was announced. Perrie deserved some consideration. He called her, and she answered right away. “Oh, Jesus, Z, I was really starting to get worried. I was sending Danny and Ant over to see if you had died. Are you alright, love?”

“Yeah, babe, I’m hanging in. What’s this about being seen?”

“Oh, yeah, well, I can explain better in person. Have you eaten or unpacked or anything since you got back?”

Zayn was almost tempted to lie, but this was Perrie, and she knew almost everything. Outside the band and his oldest school mates, she was his best friend.

“Nah, not really. Pizza. Can you get in without being seen? I’ve had media out in the street ever since I got back.”

“Yeah, you know I can hire a car with blacked out windows. We’ll pull into the garage. About an hour and a half? I need that much time to make myself beautiful for the paparazzi," Perrie laughed. Zayn smiled on his end, feeling glad she was coming, glad she would put him to rights a bit, fuss over him. He was lucky that management had picked somebody great for him. He had tried to be good to her as well.

Close to two hours later, when Perrie came in through the garage door, Zayn found himself shaking slightly with relief. He forgot sometimes how isolated he could let himself get, and how much it fucked with his head. He wrapped her in a big hug that ended with her laughing at him, “Hey, I just spent a good hour and a half to look like this, and you want to spoil it all in five minutes! Let me look at you.”

Zayn subjected himself to her scrutiny, barely able to meet her eyes. “You look beautiful, Perrie, you really do. That color blue always brings out your eyes so much.”

“Well, you look like shit, don’t ya.” At his look of mock outage, she reassured him, “Babe, you looking shit is better than 99% of male humans. You still look good. No one will notice. It’s mostly just the dead look in your eyes.” They both rolled their eyes at each other, in the easy way they had always had. It was too bad they were just such good friends and occasional lovers.

She came through to the sitting room, the place where Zayn was most inclined to spend his time, clucked at the full ashtray, collection of glasses, dirty bong, and empty pizza box before making her assured way to the front door passageway. “Uh huh. Thought so. You haven’t touched your fucking bag since you got in, have you? Jesus, men are pigs.”

With that, Perrie began setting his place to rights. She sent him off to shower and shave; when he came down 45 minutes later, the sitting room gleamed, he could hear the washing machine humming in the laundry off the kitchen, and all the detritus of two and a half days of depression had disappeared.

“Ah, Perrie, thanks. I've been a mess. How can I repay you? Need a new diamond ring? A new house? Name it.”

“Shut up, Z. We're friends, and I'm doing what a friend does, which you would know if you'd pull your head out of your ass. Anyway, our 'engagement' has always been a problem for His Royal Highness, so tell me the truth. What did that useless fucker do this time? I thought you were staying till the end of the tour.”

Zayn shrugged. Perrie knew _almost_ everything. He couldn’t tell her about the worst of the last week before he left. He could barely think of it himself. He didn’t want her to hate Harry any more than she already did, why, he wasn’t sure.

“Well, then. You’ll tell me when you’re ready. I heard from your manager, since she can’t ever reach you. She says we better go out, look in love, make it seem like it’s not problems between us that caused you to leave. She wants you to look less like a villain, more like it was something the band did, which it was, really. Plus my management wants the PR, to be honest. Can we manage it, do you think?”

They managed it. Went to the shops, holding hands and smiling. Provided plenty of fodder for the tabloids. Zayn knew he shouldn’t care, because he was furious with Harry, never wanted to see him again, probably, but he couldn’t help but think the pictures would hurt Harry if he saw them. The sooner he stopped worrying about how Harry was holding up, he thought, the sooner he could start worrying about how he was doing. He was a right mess, wasn’t he.

"So. Shall I come in? Hold your hand for a bit? Watch one of your superhero movies with you? Otherwise I'll call a car."

"Per. I'd say you're insulting me, but you know me too well. I'm a twat who's going to get completely fucked up and feel sorry for himself. Does that sound attractive?"

Perrie crinkled her nose at him, reminding him of the man who broke his heart. "You make it sound lovely, but I guess I'll push off. You can call me if you need me, and I'll keep running a tab for everything you owe me. Fair enough?"

"Fair enough, Perrie. You saved my life today, really. I needed company. I think I'll head up to Bradford after the announcement. My mum is ready to move down here if I don't anyway."

"I love Teresa, but you better get going, hadn't you? We're heading out on tour again next week, so it won't look odd if you're up there on your own. No rest for the wicked. Ok, love. We'll talk soon."

Zayn waved Perrie off and went inside, planning all the ways he was going to get shit-faced when he noticed the voice mail light blinking on the landline he had kept through everything. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a voice message. Out of curiosity he pressed the button to listen.

_Zayn. It's Haz. I've fucked everything up. I should have told you. We've never really, like, talked about the important stuff, so I don't know, I just didn't know how. What you saw, that's just my fucked up way of staying calm. It doesn't mean anything. I should have asked you to do it, but I was afraid you'd be disgusted with me. Fuck. I just left the message on this phone because I knew you wouldn't listen on your mobile. I don't know if you're still listening now. Z, I'm sorry. I know we've been....I never wanted to lose you. That's, like, the worst thing I could imagine, and now I've done it. I just, please forgive me."_

Zayn sat in the silence of the kitchen as the sound of Harry's low drawl faded slowly from the air around him. He thought about picking up the phone, calling right now or leaving a text, saying they could work on it. Then he remembered the tour videos, and Harry skipping across the stage, hugging Niall, teasing girls in the audience. Harry just couldn't stand it when someone was mad at him. That's all this was. He headed back to the sitting room and his bong, resolving to get high and do some writing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope my vision of how Zayn might have left 1D as he did is becoming clearer. I love who Zayn was in the band, and all the ways he looked out for his boys. I have puzzled a lot over that person and the Zayn who did interviews in the aftermath of his departure, especially what he said about his relationship with Harry. I don't think he was lying, so part of this fic has been working out in my own mind what might have caused him to want to lash out at Harry so much. Kudos and comments are crack, so don't hold back if you liked anything about this, my freshman effort at writing fiction.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zayn and Harry enter into a particularly intense part of their relationship, one fraught with misunderstandings and miscommunication. Angsty and melodramatic, just like Zarry.
> 
> Thanks more than I can say to coniferophyta for being the best beta. If this is a decent chapter, thank her. If it's terrible, the fault is all mine.

### Chapter 3

 

_And, yeah, I let you use me from the day that we first met_  
_But I'm not done yet_  
_Falling for your fool's gold_  
_And I knew that you turned it on for everyone you met  
_ _But I don't regret  
_ _Falling for your fool's gold_

**Early September 2013**  
When the band reconvened in early September to begin preparation for the last leg of Take Me Home, Zayn cornered Harry on the first day. It took some doing. Harry managed to keep a band member between him and Zayn for most of the day, but Zayn was determined. At last Harry headed to the loo alone, and Zayn told Louis he would rehearse those harmonies with him in just….one...second. “Uh huh,” Louis lifted his eyebrows in his own inimitable style. “Good luck, because I don’t think Haz will talk to you. Even your name makes his brow furrow.”

“Yeah,” Zayn replied, choosing to ignore the sarcasm, “I’m sure I need the luck.”

He found Harry at the urinal, just zipping up--too bad for that. “Harry. We need to talk.”

“Do we? Because I don’t need to talk to you.”

“C’mon, Haz. We need to talk. I need to talk.”

“Yeah? Are you still engaged?” Harry took one look at Zayn’s face. “We don’t need to talk. We need to avoid each other, because I don’t want to tempt you.”

“She knows. It’s not like that, her and me. We’re mostly friends.”

“So while you’ve been out ring-buying and getting papped snogging in public and spending all your time together, it’s just as friends? Tell me, then. Have you fucked her since I saw you last?”

Zayn knew what his face revealed.

“Exactly. I need to step out of the way. You are in a serious relationship, and I’m not a home wrecker. Well, not anymore. I learned my lesson. Sorry, Zayn. I fail to see what we have to talk about.”

“Harry. She knows about us. She’s okay with it. She knows it helps me on tour and….” This was a mistake, if the squinty glitter of Harry’s eyes were any indication.

“Let me get this straight. Perrie knows you’ve got a piece on the side, and she’s okay with it while we’re on the road, since she hopes it’ll keep you from fucking girls.” Harry snorted. “That’s rich, Z. Really. Does she know how we ‘met’--and here Harry raised his long, beautiful tattooed arms to make air quotes--was pulling girls? Zayn’s heart, already in his belly, dropped a bit lower. Sounds like you’ve got a fucked-up relationship, all the more reason I don’t want any part of it.”

By this point in the conversation, Harry was loud, the sound echoing off the tiled walls of the loo. As luck would have it, the door opened, and Liam walked in. Zayn supposed Harry’s cold, loud words were still echoing off the cold, pristine tiles of the loo. “Hey guys! Oh. Yeah, I’ll come back. Looks like I’ve interrupted a conversation. Byeee.”

It would have been funny, except that Zayn’s heart was breaking, and his dick felt like it might break too. Angry!Harry, like every other iteration of Harry, was fit.

“Babe. Haz. What do you want me to do? Perrie and I have a contract to stay engaged for two years. I don’t have to see her except for PR. I won’t fuck her, if you don’t want me to….”

This was Harry’s opening, and he took it, with triumph and glee. “Why would I care what you do with Perrie? We were briefly fuck buddies, and now we’re not. Easy. Good thing that we didn’t let feelings get involved, right? Easy. Look. I don’t like the way you’ve handled this, but I’m a professional, and I will get along with you. Just stop trying to talk to me like we have a relationship, hmmm?” With that, Harry left the bathroom and Zayn, leaving a tantalizing glimpse of his pretty bum, encased in his trademark skinny jeans. Zayn sighed. He didn’t know what he missed, even. Just Harry. Harry.

Days later, Harry had already stayed mad longer than Zayn had ever seen him do. Generally Harry’s habit when he got truly and deeply mad at someone was to cut that person out of his life. When that wasn’t possible, like with Louis when he caught feels or whatever had happened, Harry came around pretty quickly. It seemed to Zayn, and he paid attention to how everyone was doing, that Harry and Louis were hugging and snickering in corners in a matter of days after the blow-up between them. Surely Harry’s good nature and basic narcissism would prevail again, especially if the person he was mad at were engaged in the single-minded quest to be forgiven that Zayn undertook. He knew that at least to some extent Harry also found Zayn hard to resist. Zayn would make it impossible. He had pulled girls, hard, for him and for Harry for three fucking years. Pulling one boy he was confident he could do.

If only Harry didn’t look so….delectable. He had spent time in California over the break, and his smooth skin was lightly tanned, as though he had brushed himself all over with a glow. His eyes looked greener; his mouth redder. His body had matured--was that possible, over six weeks? And was he taller? Zayn found himself tongue-tied around this Harry 2.0, so much so that he did something new for him: he relied on his own looks. Everyone said he was fit. He’d see if he could have any effect on Harry.

During the rest of the rehearsals, he wore the henleys that Harry liked the most, especially the red one, unbuttoned. He left gel out of his hair, letting it fall softly into his eyes. “Jesus, Z!” Lou complained when Zayn was in for hair styling prep and wardrobe. “Your hair is so fine that I cannot work with it without product! And right now we can’t see your eyes. They’re your best feature, babe! Let the girls see those eyes, huh? Why are you torturing me?”

Zayn laughed her off. “Sorry, Lou, I promise I’ll go back to whatever product you want to use, just...give me a bit. My hair needs a break.”

“Is that what it is,” Lou nodded meaningfully. “I see. Of course, honey. You do whatever you need to do. Harry really likes your hair like this.”

Fuck. “Does he? I hadn’t noticed.”

Lou swatted him on the ass. “No, of course you haven’t. You boys. Get out of my styling room.”

He saw Harry’s eyes soften a little the first time he used his free hand to swipe his long bangs off his forehead; Harry mirrored the move unconsciously. Zayn allowed his gaze, temporarily unimpeded by hair, to linger a little on Harry’s face. He might have widened his eyes just a little, imploringly. He might have licked his lips, letting his tongue linger on his bottom lip. He might have kept this up for days. It was hard to remember now.

Harry 2.0 might have been torturing Zayn in return. He wore the paper thin tees that Zayn loved, with the sleeves rolled all the way up, showing off the sheen of his arms. He’d gotten a new tattoo, Zayn noticed, but his personal favorites, the laurels that bracketed Harry’s navel just below, were visible regularly as Harry stretched and scratched his belly and pulled his hair back and generally preened. Harry had always been super affectionate with everyone, but during rehearsals he outdid himself, grinding against Niall until Niall, chortling, shoved him off. He draped himself over Liam, whispering in his ear and making him giggle. He even touched Louis more than he had in over a year, too much, Zayn thought. Harry 2.0 walked away from everyone else when he took calls, texted constantly, and was out every night with his celebrity friends, getting papped and published in the tabloids.

Zayn found all this distracting. He couldn’t campaign for forgiveness without Harry being around. He still wasn’t sure why he needed to be forgiven. The worst of it was that the longer this went on the more he felt the need for forgiveness. It didn’t matter anymore to him why Harry was mad, just that he needed him not to be. Every time Harry stopped showing his dimples when Zayn appeared in his sight line or answered him shortly and out of necessity, Zayn wilted a little more. He was shit at feuds. He would do anything to settle this.

Zayn well knew that when rehearsals ended they would have a day, maybe two to say goodbye to family, run any last minute errands, pack, leave instructions for housekeepers, pet sitters, and flatmates, get ready to be gone for months. Zayn also knew that any 1D transition called for a party. Harry, who drank sparingly if at all when working, was sure to take this opportunity to blow one out, and with any luck Zayn would too.

Management decided to keep it small, just the boys, significant others if desired, top management, and a few friends who might be helpful while the tour was ongoing, like Nick Grimshaw. Drunk Harry was always all over Nick, and it had made Zayn jealous in the past, even before he and Harry had moved into this weird nowhereland of not-mates/not-lovers, but he would control himself tonight. They would fit comfortably inside the ultramodern private event space Pillow Talk at the W Hotel. Perrie wasn’t coming, having concluded that they had been papped enough, her engagement ring noticed enough, that she could let Zayn do his thing. She even sympathized with his Harry obsession. “You just haven’t had him enough, Z. He’s the one that got away, so go get him! But make him suffer first. You know I think he’s a self-centered asshole, so if you’re going to get this out of your system, at least make that fucker pay.”

“Yeah, I’ll do my best, Per, but I don’t have much of a record of resisting Harry so far, and he’s really good at resisting me.”

That night, Zayn dressed carefully in tight black jeans and a black button down with a silver lasso necklace. He left his hair loose, knowing it was a weapon. He finished his look with heeled boots so that he had a chance, at least, of being close to Harry’s eye level, perfect for sultry gazes. He wanted to respect Harry’s limits, but even more he wanted to get him in a bed. On the off chance he got lucky, he had his manager book a suite at W, just in case. He went to the party a little later, to make an entrance. Just in case.

Yep. Harry was pretty wasted by the time Zayn walked in, and he was handsy drunk as usual. This was the Harry Zayn had hoped to find tonight, the generous boy who couldn’t stay mad.

“Zaaayyynnnn! What took you so long? We’ve been waiiiiitttting forEVER!”

Consciously avoiding anything Harry might recognize as a smirk, he turned with the happy smile his boy deserved: “Haz! You know I’m always late. You better help me catch up to you, yeah?”

He swung an arm around Harry’s shoulders, just to see if he could, and Harry leaned into him, swaying. “I’ve been mad at you, Zayner. Really mad. I can’t remember what it was about though. You look so pretty. I love your hair all soft and in your face like this. Can I touch it, Z?”

Zayn leaned in and whispered, “You can touch anything you want, Haz. Anything at all.” He waggled his eyebrows at Harry, like they used to do to each other in better times, hopeful that alcohol and lust would work in his favor. It seemed to, because Harry broke into a grin. “I want to touch your asshole, Zayn!”

“Ssshhhh, Haz, management is here! You know what they’ll do if they think we’re, um, if we..., just sssshhhh.”

“Oh! Ssssshhhh, right,” Harry slurred. Maybe you better take me home, Zayner. I’m too drunk, and you can still drive. Wait, where are we?” Do we have cars? We’re in London? I don’t have a car in London! How can we get anywhere?”

“We can call an Uber, Haz. Let me have a glass of champagne and chat a bit. I’ll get you a glass of water, and no more drinking for you, yeah?”

Zayn wrapped his arm tightly around Harry’s waist, and let Harry’s head loll on his shoulder. He let go reluctantly to get his own bubbly and water for Haz. When he returned to the group, Harry was already draped over Nick, nuzzling his neck and smiling sleepily. Jesus. Zayn couldn’t leave Harry for a minute, and who could look away from him in the shirt that matched his eyes open to the waist, displaying his newly developed chest and his flat stomach. Was that a six pack? What the hell. Harry had always been beautiful, but now Zayn just wanted to eat him. Nick was laughing at something Harry said, seemingly unaffected by Harry’s nearness. Zayn made his way over to Nick and Harry. “Haz, babe, here’s your water.”

“What? I don’t want water. I love champagne. Nick, take me to the champagne, please.”

“Love, I think Zayn is right for once. You’re pissed. Maybe that water.”

For the one and only time in his life, Zayn loved Nick Grimshaw. He would have happily thrown himself at Nick’s feet in gratitude had he followed his feelings. He took the opportunity to remind Harry that he had been happy to see him, grabbing his waist lightly. Harry turned to him blearily.

“Zayn! Did you just get here! Everybody wondered where you were. Babe, let’s have some champagne!”

Wrapping an arm around Harry, Zayn announced to the room at large, “Hey, I’ve got to get Haz out of here before he throws up. You know what a lightweight he is.”

There were knowing chuckles, and Louis might have muttered something completely inappropriate, but ten minutes later he and Harry were in front of the elevator.

“I’m not that drunk,” Harry announced solemnly.

“Yeah, I think you are, or you wouldn’t be standing here with me.”

“No. You aren’t listening to me, and you usually do listen. I’m not _that_ drunk. I might have been exaggerating a little. Maybe I needed an excuse to touch you. I’ve missed you.”

“What?” Zayn would never be able to keep up with Harry. Why did he try?

“Yeah, I’ve missed you, Z. I know you know. And I wanted you to know what you were missing.”

“What are you saying, Harry? “What do you mean?”

“I’m not that mad any more,” Harry shrugged, “And I already decided that if you came alone you wouldn’t have to come alone.” He rolled his eyes at Zayn. “Get it? Came alone, come alone? Get it?”

“A twelve year old would get it, Harry,” Zayn retorted, “but what are you saying?”

Harry’s eyes flashed. “Stop playing dumb. You think I haven’t noticed how pretty you’ve looked? Your hair….I’ve wanted to have my hands in it for weeks. The henleys. The _looks_. You’ve been trying to make me forgive you, and it’s been working, that’s all.”

Zayn felt his heart swell. It was true, he thought. When emotions overwhelmed you, you could literally see stars. “Harry, I’ve hated this. I just want us to be like we were.”

“Like we were when, Zayn? Before we messed around, or after? Because I don’t think I can go back. I can’t look at you anymore without thinking about sex.”

“Yeah, Haz, after. That’s what I want too. You’ve looked so beautiful all during rehearsals. I’ve just thought about being naked with you. I want to fuck, Haz.” He let his breath ghost over Harry’s neck as he said it, and then he licked behind his ear and around the rim. “Let me get you to a bed. Are you too drunk?”

“No, I’m just the right drunk,” Harry responded, “I’m drunk enough to go for what I want but not too drunk that I don’t know what to do with it if I get it. Let me fuck you, Z.”

Zayn froze. Only Harry had ever touched him there, and only with his tongue. His brain wasn’t sure about this idea at all, but apparently his dick had other ideas. He briefly imagined Harry over him, whispering filth in his ear, pressing into him, filling him up, and the thought was deeply arousing.

“Yeah, you can fuck me, Haz. I got a suite here. Let’s go up there. I’ll let you fuck me, babe. I’d do anything for you right now,” he murmured, pressing into Harry’s hip to show he meant it.

Harry smiled at him, a little drunkenly. “That’s sweet, Z, but we’ll have to go to mine. There are items we need, to like, prep you for this. I haven’t done it before, but I’ve done research. It’s well, safer, if you do prep.”

Drunk Harry was making Zayn uncomfortable, and anyway, Harry had said something that needed clarification.

The elevator pinged, and the doors opened. Zayn guided Harry inside, enjoying having his hands firmly on Harry’s narrow waist but increasingly dubious about what he had agreed to.

“What do you mean by prep?”

“You’re so silly! Do you think shit just disappears because you want to have anal sex?”

Ok, this was a lot. Zayn pondered for a minute just what Harry was saying. He had actually never researched gay sex and was pretty impressed that Harry had. Still. Was Harry saying...what was Harry saying? “I know I’m being kinda thick, but what does prep mean?”

“You have to have an enema, babe. S’okay. I have everything at mine. I’ve had it for ages, since when we were going to spend part of our hols together. I hoped this might happen, you know.”

“Wait, Harry. I’ve never had anything up there, like, nothing at all. That’s always been an exit, not an entry.”

“It’ll be sexy, babe. I’ll lube you up, and the water will be really warm, and it’ll feel good, I promise.”

How was Harry making this sound erotic? And why was he going to be in the room during an enema? This was upping their intimacy level by a thousand degrees. He thought back to the last 24 hours. What had he eaten? Not much, as usual, but surely something would come out. Would it smell? And yet, his dick was still interested. Ok. For Harry.

By the time the two boys were in the car park waiting for their Uber, Zayn had started to seriously reconsider if this was something he wanted. He shrugged mentally. Harry wasn’t mad at him. Whatever it took, that was the most important thing.

* * *

**March 23, 2015**  
He thought of everything between that day and this one and how he had come to be here, in London, alone. He thought of Harry pinning him to the bed, whispering his every dirty thought in his ear, being gentle with him during and tender after. “I was your first, babe. I love that you let me.” He never begrudged Harry the fact that the enema had been, strictly speaking, unnecessary. If Harry wanted him clean, he would be clean.

He remembered that then two nights later in the hotel hall Harry had his tongue down the throat of a very fit blonde twink, barely legal, that Security had pulled from the crowd for him at their first Sydney show. As the boy ground his pelvis into Harry’s, Zayn was met with Harry's steady gaze asking clearly, do you have anything you want to say about this, Zayn? Zayn did not.

And then, seized by inspiration at his memories, he pulled his laptop out of his backpack where it had been since coming back to London, thankful to see it still had a charge, and began writing: 

_Now that I’m on the edge/I can’t find my way/Open up and see what inside of my, my mind/Open up and see what’s inside of my, my mind._

A melody began to waft around the words like smoke, as insubstantial as his longing.

 

* * *

**Early October 2013**  
Sober Harry was not as affectionate as drunk Harry, Zayn reflected ruefully. The night after the last Sydney show they flew out to New Zealand, and Harry as was becoming his custom flew on the crew plane. He didn't like the smoke, he said. It affected his asthma. It was bad luck that it kept him separate from Zayn.

The first night in Auckland, management had decided they should host a private party for 1D and their opening act, 5SOS, and they stocked the party with booze and pretty girls. Harry didn’t need Zayn’s help in pulling; when Zayn found him across the room, he was always leaning into a girl, saying something in her ear--why did Harry always have to be whispering with his stupid voice?--smiling and tugging on his hair. He looked like a rock star, Zayn thought, like Mick or Jon Bon Jovi or fucking Prince, like sex on legs, his long legs and his thick thighs, the bulge always just visible in his skinny jeans. He looked like money and like invincibility, like nothing in life was ever going to hurt him, like he would bounce from one blow job to being ridden to the next blow job to success after success after success, and every interview was going to be the same, with the echo of “Harry, Harry, Harry” in Zayn’s ears while he tried to make himself invisible.

Unlike Louis and Liam, Zayn had never begrudged his Baby Jagger the attention. The more attention Harry got, the less Zayn’s silence was noticed, and if he were any of those fawning reporters he would be begging for Harry’s attention too. He wanted to beg for it now, now that he knew that he craved Harry’s touch, but he remembered the way Harry had circled back to Zayn on stage over and over that night and how between flirting with girls at the party he would come find Zayn and place his hand against his lower back, grace him with his clear gaze and the smile that belonged to Zayn alone, before someone would find him again: “Harry, Harry! There’s someone you have to meet/who wants to meet you/who flew all the way to New Zealand to see you perform.” And off he would go, an apologetic look and a laugh over his shoulder. He loved all of this, and Zayn hated it, more and more.

Finally, when he felt he could reasonably plead tiredness and when it was clear that Harry was going home with a local, and probably Zayn could guess which, he slipped over to Paul to say, “Can a car drive me to the hotel? I’m knackered, and I need to call Perrie.” When the car came, he slipped out without telling Harry he was going, just vaguely gesturing to Niall, “Hey, I’m going back to the hotel. Tell everybody I said goodnight and see them tomorrow,” and he let himself settle in to his room alone, with his laptop propped open and Perrie’s bright eyes and voice in the Skype window, making him feel fond, making him miss her even if she was just a friend with benefits to whom he might actually, improbably, be married. He was homesick and told her so.

“Ah, Zaynie, you always want to be wherever you’re not, don’t you love,” was Perrie’s reply, and it seemed so true that he could only gape at her.

“There’s a word for that in Japanese, I think, but I can’t remember what it is. Or maybe it’s fernweh. Nah, that’s German for missing someplace you’ve never been. That’s almost the same thing, innit?”

“I don’t know, love. You’re the one who wanted to be an English teacher. Hey, I’ve got to go get fitted for costumes. Love you! When are you back? A while? It’ll be good to see you, get sorted out a bit. You can tell me all about your forgiveness campaign. Successful, was it?”

Zayn didn’t really know how to answer that one.

* * *

There were, Zayn remembered now and had counted then, three more nights alone with Harry on the Take Me Home Tour, before the contractually obligated and dreaded, by Zayn at least, One Direction Day, when they would be live streaming from Long Island. They went back to pulling a few times, once with a beautiful long-haired girl who seated herself first on Harry and then on Zayn, who had whispered, “Why don’t you boys make out? You’re so fit. Pretty boys kissing are so hot,” before Zayn and Harry raised an eyebrow at each other, leaned in, and let themselves kiss as the performance it was. Zayn could vaguely hear the girl in the background rubbing herself off against his pubes, fully seated on his cock, saying “Omg, that’s so hot, let me see your tongues,” and he and Harry, obedient, had sunk into really kissing each other for the first time, the beautiful random groupie with avid eyes watching Zayn and Harry make out with each other with tongue, with hot breath, with little sounds of pleasure. Finally the annoying beautiful girl had said, “Ok, god, that’s enough. Somebody kiss me!” and Harry had turned to her, radiant, planting his big, slightly calloused hands on Zayn’s thigh, and kissed her, making sure that his tongue was fully visible for Zayn. Zayn had felt so hungry for Harry then; on the one hand it had been so hard not to push the pretty girl away, to throw her and her clothes out the door so that he could suck bruises up and down Harry’s tattooed torso, claiming him. On the other, he wanted to watch Harry, to fill himself with another’s desire for him and to indulge fully in his own jealousy. The intensity of it made him lose his breath.

Zayn could admit now, buzzing alone in his expensive London home, that it had been hot. Sharing Harry was hot, and he wished he could do it again. He would take Harry with another, a bloke or a girl, just to hear his moans again, just to see the sheen of sweat on his long back or the way his eyes half closed in pleasure. Harry. When had he fallen in love with him? That’s what it was, wasn’t it.

Maybe it was the last night of the tour, in Chiba. There had been an end-of-tour party, again with the parties, again with booze and pretty girls, but they were all exhausted and mostly uninterested. If you wanted to know how to make a 20-year-old lose interest in sex, put him on tour for a year, thought Zayn, wryly. He had gone outside the venue, out the side door into a narrow protected alley, to smoke and contemplate having the next six weeks off. The door opened for Harry, who always knew when and where Zayn was smoking.

“There you are, Z.”

“Harry, you saw me slip out. You always know when I’m smoking. Don’t give me shit. I’m gonna quit before the next tour, promise.”

“I don’t care, really. I just worry for your health. And your stamina.” Harry grinned, unable to express concern without acting like it was about him somehow.

“Speaking of that, we don’t fly out until around 2 in the afternoon, yeah? Feel like staying up for a bit?”

Harry surprised Zayn, not for the first time and not even close to the last, by leaning in toward his face, his soft curls brushing against Zayn’s temple, before pressing his soft lips to Zayn’s. “Yeah. It’ll be a while without. I want it. Do you want it, Z? Do you want me too?” Zayn’s lack of interest in sex didn’t extend to Harry, no matter how tired he was. It just didn’t. He found himself blurting out a truth.

“I can taste you on my tongue already, Haz. I want it. I want you. When can we go?”

Harry looked at his watch. “I think,” he drawled, “that if we give the people another half hour we can plead utter tour fatigue. Don’t let the other boys see you, though, or they’ll want to come back with us.”

“No they won’t, Haz. They know what we’re doing.”

Harry’s eyes widened. “No, they don’t. That’s not true.”

“Yeah, they do. You know Louis has known all along. Niall even said something just the other day, like I should watch how I touched you on stage and did I not know there were cameras at every angle. He said I was an amateur at sneaking around, Haz. They know.”

Harry shrugged. “Eh, it’s alright. I just don’t want you to be embarrassed or anything. You okay with it?”

Zayn smiled slightly as he pushed himself away from the wall and tossed his cigarette down, grinding it out with his heel. “We can’t hide from the boys, Harry. We all know everything there is to know about each other. Let’s go get off.”

Harry was especially tender that night. He kissed Zayn without prompting, stroked Zayn’s sides and back and arms gently, so gently that Zayn had to remind himself once again that he and Harry were fuck buddies, nothing more. They were so tired that after all the foreplay Harry wrapped his large hands, slim fingers ringless, around both their cocks, twisting and squeezing until they came within seconds of each other. “I love you, Harry Styles,” Zayn wanted to say. Instead, he got them warm flannels from the bathroom, wiped Harry’s hands and cock carefully, placed a soft kiss on the top of Harry's head and another on his mouth before smiling at him and whispering, “Let’s get some sleep, yeah? Tomorrow will be really busy, and I’m knackered. You wore me out, Haz. Good thing you’re giving me a break.”

In spite of his fatigue, Zayn found himself wakeful, watching Harry sleep, light purple bruises under his eyes from exhaustion but still so very beautiful. The skin of his arms, his lashes resting on the cheeks that still held just a trace of boy, the curve of his ass, the pink of his lips, all were too dear to Zayn. He felt again the tremor of fear, of being in over his head, of the guilt of knowing that he was truly and deeply unfaithful to his fiancee even if she didn’t care that much. It would be better. He would be better, he resolved. The break would be good.

In the morning, as usual, Harry was gone when Zayn woke, and between a quick Skype with Danny making arrangements to pick him up at Heathrow and a quick text to Perrie saying he was on the way home, throwing all his belongings into his bag, and the chaos and good wishes surrounding the end of the tour, Zayn didn’t get a chance to speak to Harry until they were on the plane. Even then, almost immediately all five boys were asleep and slept throughout the flight, even Zayn who normally was too anxious about flying. They would have a week London before leaving for One Direction Day taping in New York. How much longer could any of them withstand the pace of being in the biggest boy band in the world?

* * *

**March 25, 2015**  
Zayn turned his phone off. He didn’t want to talk to Perrie or his mum or Danny or Ant. He didn’t want to see his twitter or Facebook. He just wanted to get high, which meant another order. Shit. He was smoking a lot. His lungs felt it too, felt as raw and aching as his heart. It was done now. He would get high, he would drink, and he would deal with the rest of it when he was better equipped. When the gate opened on its own, he was sure that it was his weed delivery, so it was a surprise to find Danny and Ant at his door, ready to wrap him in their arms. “Fuck, Z, you stink. Dude, we got here just in time.”

It must have been true, because an hour later, Zayn was out of his reeking clothes, showered, shaved, dressed in clean jeans and tee, the washing machine humming from the far side of the kitchen as usual. Apparently he couldn’t do his own laundry any more. His phone was plugged in the charger and a constant stream of pings announced that he had missed a few messages in the last twenty-four hours.

“Want me to check them, Z?” Danny offered as he began scrolling down the long list of missed calls, texts, and posts.

“Nah, they’re not important.”

“Really? Does Harry Fucking Styles usually text you to tell you he loves you?”

“Give me that phone!” Zayn saw that it was true, that he had not one but four messages from Harry.

The first was simple: _all the love always H._

The second: _surely you arent going to ignore me Z_

The third: _I miss you I want you to come back please_

The fourth: _fuck you Z._

Zayn shook his head. He wanted to call him, right then. He wanted to fly to South Africa and be waiting for Harry when he arrived. But he knew whatever he and Harry wanted it wasn’t the same.

* * *

**March 30, 2015**  
“Shahid, you dick! You absolute motherfucker!” Zayn is shouting into his phone, almost completely unhinged by this betrayal. Naughty Boy was the person he went to in the months before he left the band, when he wasn’t eating, when he was most distraught at the thought of Harry, when he was lovesick, rejected, lonely, and unable to hide any of it. It was Naughty Boy he worked with on “I Won’t Mind,” and Naughty Boy who never asked him who or what the song was about. It was not an easy set of lyrics to explain, and he had decided, finally, that this song was going to stay in the vault with his other Harry feelings. He was, to say the least, surprised to wake up less than a week after his exit from the band to discover his twitter blowing up, all along the same lines:

The worst of it was, is, that Zayn was nowhere near releasing music; he didn’t even know what was happening with his Modest contract. His manager was working something out, but the last thing she said to him was, “Zayn, for now you need to keep a low profile. No gigs, not even at a karaoke bar. No leaking songs, and yeah, I know you’ve got them. Nothing. You are still under contract, and nothing is settled.”

This was not keeping a low profile.

“Muthafucka, I didn’t leak shit. You sure you don’t have a friend tryna generate interest in your solo music? Not that I know anything about it. I already got burnt once talking bout ya music. Man, you have some trust issues. Call me when you ready to fucking apologize!”

Zayn threw the phone down, making sure that even in his anger it hit the sofa, since he had finally upgraded to an iPhone 6+ and barely knew how to use it yet. Worst of all he could imagine Harry’s reaction. Harry and Zayn were both loyal, to a fault almost, never saying a word about anyone they had ever known, but this was too much. He wouldn’t even appreciate being the subject of the song, and really, why would he? He’d made it clear enough that Zayn was never going to mean more to him than a mate and a friendly fuck. Jesus. Maybe the lyrics weren’t as bad as he remembered. He opened his laptop to the “Songs” folder, then clicked on I Won’t Mind:

_Don't look around 'cause love is blind_  
_And darling right now, I can't see you_  
_I'm feeling proud so without a doubt_  
_I can feel you_

Worse. They were worse. He wrote the entire song, with Naughty Boy helping with the melody and supplying beats later, in the first 48 hours after arriving back in London. The angst made him sick now.  


_Cause we are who we are_  
_When no one's watching_  
_And right from the start_  
_You know I got you_

Yeah. No one in the band would have any idea who he was talking about, right? Naughty had already pulled the song off SoundCloud, but Zayn knew it was too late. It would be up on YouTube by now, with lyrics, and no doubt there would be video portraying soulful glances between him and Liam, or him and Harry, or him and Louis.

Within the hour, his phone pinged with a text from Louis.

He couldn’t answer him. He had nothing to say. He was going to kill Shahid, and then he was going to kill himself. Before all that, though, Zayn decided, he was going to get raging drunk.

* * *

He heard his phone ping sometime in the early hours of the morning, not more than an hour after he finally passed out, drunk enough to have fallen into bed without even taking off his shoes. Fuck.

Without opening his eyes, because he knew even moonlight in the room was going to make his head pound, Zayn reached for his phone and his Ray-bans. Shades first. Now squint slowly at the screen. Harry. There was a blank text message with an audio file attachment from him. Zayn’s heart sank. Did Harry think a “fuck you” text wasn’t enough and had to make a voice message? What fresh hell was this?

He unlocked his phone. MP3, so maybe he couldn’t swear at Zayn long enough on voicemail. Fingers trembling, he hit “play” and listened as instead of a telling off he heard Harry strumming his favorite Gibson acoustic:

__

_If I could fly, I'd be coming right back home to you_  
_I think I might give up everything, just ask me to_  
_Pay attention, I hope that you listen 'cause I let my guard down_  
_Right now I'm completely defenseless_

No. God. Zayn hit pause. There was nothing Harry could have done to devastate him more than this. He was in the right to leave; Harry had been so wrong, every kind of wrong. How could he do this, slide right through Zayn’s defenses as though they weren’t even there? Could he listen to any more? It was from Harry, so of course he pressed play.

_For your eyes only, I’ll show you my heart_  
_For when you’re lonely and forget who you are_  
_I’m missing half of me when we’re apart  
_ _Now you know me, for your eyes only_

There was nothing else for it. He had to reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. I like to think that Drama Queen Harry would do something just like this. He always seems like the most charming person in the world, but A Lot. He's going to be even more A Lot in chapter 4, which I expect to publish next Saturday. Thanks for reading and as always comments especially are crack, but kudos are like a really good glass of wine, so please if you like anything in this fic from a first-time author, don't hold back!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zayn and Harry continue their hot/cold relationship. Nothing gets resolved, but they move much closer to resolution. 
> 
> As a reminder, these are fictional characters. As far as I know, not one event portrayed here happened in real life, and Zayn and Harry just got bored of each other. For laziness'/simplicity's sake, I sometimes collapse several characters (like 1D's lovely stylist Lou seems to do everything in this fic) and in other cases ignore the real 1D timeline. I hope none is so blatantly wrong as to offend.

## Chapter 4

_Yeah, I know your love's not real_

_That's not the way it feels_

_That's not the way you feel_

**A Break late mid-December - late February 2014**

1D Day was an absolute cluster fuck, if you asked Zayn, which fortunately no one did. He mostly remembered operating on no sleep, with no idea exactly what they were supposed to be doing, Harry being distant, and Zayn feeling foolish as he kept trying to catch Harry’s eye. He told himself to forget about Harry but the minute he lost focus on just that one thing he found himself standing next to Harry again. Then Harry would find a reason to move away, and then Zayn would remind himself to forget about Harry, and then he would forget to forget. 

Finally to distract himself he started flirting with Liam, and then he got distracted because Harry looked upset by it, and then Harry was flirting with Niall. Then Zayn forgot that Harry had been flirting with Niall because he took off his shirt and made Zayn do a dance routine, and Zayn was distracted by shirtless Harry. Maybe giddy because Harry was smiling at him, until the cameraman moved away, and the grin fell off Harry’s face as if it had been improperly glued. 

Zayn remembered again why he was forgetting Harry but Harry disappeared, so then it was hard to forget him for worrying what happened to him.They almost never spoke to each other, but everything they did not speaking gave Zayn a headache.

Then they flew to Los Angeles and...events happened, and the boys were always together. When an event ended, Harry was off for more hanging out with celebrities. He exhausted Zayn, and he made Zayn’s bones ache. Zayn knew a few people in LA too, but they were rappers and producers. He met with a few of them, including one called Naughty Boy. They stayed up late one night at someone’s house, smoking quantities of an excellent California bud and putting down beats with Zayn freestyling lyrics over them. “We should work together,” Naughty Boy suggested. 

“Yah, as soon as I get a break,” Zayn replied, and then he started laughing and laughing and he couldn’t stop.

Finally it was mid-December and there was a real break. He hadn’t spoken to Harry alone since early November. It was fine, though.

He told himself to forget about Harry, enjoy his time with family, get some rest. Then he would forget what he was supposed to forget, and he would Google “Harry Styles” and see the latest pap shots of Harry with fucking Nick Grimshaw going in and out of clubs, winning a British Style Award, flying to New York to hang out with more celebs, including Alexa Chung, whom Zayn was pretty sure Harry fucked back in the day when he was gagging for every model and actress in sight. Then Zayn would remember that he was supposed to forget about Harry Fucking Styles. 

All in all, despite getting settled in the new home he bought for the fam, Perrie coming up Christmas night and staying through New Years Day, eating his mum’s cooking and having his sisters on hand to interrogate and tease, his mates to see, and plenty of sleeping to do, he found himself feeling itchy and uncertain. He was pretty sure that he was over thinking he was in love with Harry, because that was just stupid, wasn’t it. Still, he felt unsettled.

In mid-January, Zayn went back to London. He hung out with Perrie a bit. He smoked more weed. He hung out with a few producers. Nobody paid much attention to him on the streets and nobody called, not least Harry Styles. A break was a break. He and Perrie fucked, and he was reminded how much he liked her soft skin and lips. She loved sex too, almost as much as he did, and they mixed things up a bit. He remembered that he had liked having his nipples pinched, so one night he got Perrie to do it. She was enthusiastic about it, so much so that she bit his earlobe, hard, and sucked bruises into his chest. 

On the last night of the break, he told her to suck a bruise on his neck, a big one, because it was so hot. That was the only reason. He told himself that he could fall in love with Perrie Fucking Edwards if he could fall for someone as pretentious and cold-hearted as Harry Fucking Styles. And then the break was well and truly over. Zayn felt as tired as if it were the last night in Chiba and Harry Styles had just fucked the tour right out of him.

* * *

**April 2014**  
Zayn gets through the prep for Where We Are, because it’s busy, and they’re getting fitted by wardrobe and doing promos and rehearsing the songs, and Harry is always somewhere else. Zayn feels him dart by sometimes, feels the air disturbance that Harry makes him feel like no one else, but when he turns he only ever sees the back of his head. His hair is getting longer. Harry’s habit of running his hands through it means that it doesn’t always looks great, which Zayn takes a certain delight in. Harry Fucking Styles, with greasy hair. His forehead is spotty, too, Zayn notices. He supposes it’s always been, because Harry isn’t good about cleaning his face, but it’s a pleasure to notice flaws dispassionately, to keep a running total in his head. The extra nipples aren’t symmetrical. They’re flaws too. But thinking of Harry’s extra nipples just makes him think of his other nipples, the ones that are so sensitive that a light tonguing has Harry gasping and clutching Zayn’s shoulders. So he can’t add Harry’s extra nipples to the list of his flaws. No matter. There are others. 

Harry’s pigeon-toed, and his posture isn’t good at all. If he’s not gesticulating with his arms out, if he’s just standing on his own, he tends to hunch his shoulders in, like he’s protecting himself, or like his last growth spurt makes him uncertain about what to do with being taller than the rest of them, like he wants to be the same size again. Sometimes he looks so beautiful that Zayn wants to punch him, hard, in the stomach, but sometimes he is the dorkiest looking dumb ass alive. He farts. It’s all the veg he eats. They smell as bad as anyone’s. His shit stinks, same as anyone’s. He’s just a guy, somebody Zayn used to know.

But then they fly to Bogota, and it’s the first show, and he remembers why he forgets how special Harry is, because Harry on stage is fully and completely alive and electrified. He was born to perform. For Zayn, being on stage is always zippering into a skin that doesn’t belong to him. He has to let his voice and his face carry the weight, because he’s never gotten over being stiff and unnatural. Zayn stands, fidgets with his earpiece, tries to find a comfortable position, can’t. Haz uses the whole stage, climbs every piece of the set, cajoles the crowds of screaming girls, teases this one and that one, gives dirty smiles and dimpled grins. It’s, what’s that word that fits Harry Fucking Styles so well? Oh yeah, it’s _charming_.

Zayn has to try again to forget about Harry. He stands by Liam. He drapes an arm around him, smiles at him, is gratified by how much Liam likes the attention, not like Harry. Harry wants the whole world looking at him. Zayn is going to be the only person in the world who doesn’t stare at Harry Styles, it’s a plan, and a good one, but he forgets. He finds himself standing next to Harry anyway, when he’s supposed to be forgetting him. 

As the tour progresses across South America, Harry doesn’t help, because on stage, when he’s wired and half turned on and high from the crowd, he forgets too. He stands next to Zayn. He slings an arm across Zayn’s shoulders. He forgets the ways he’s not touching Zayn and pats his bum lightly. It’s not like before, and he’s quicker than Zayn to remember what he’s forgotten. When he remembers, when the light goes out in his eyes and he turns away, Zayn feels the force field that pulls him into Harry, and he has to plant his feet on the stage, hard, to keep from following him. 

So the days are avoiding each other, and the nights are push/pull. Zayn smokes pot on his hotel room balcony until late. Harry’s room is at the far end of the hall, and Zayn is pretty sure he insisted that it be so. Sometimes he’s on a different floor, even though this causes problems for security, and Zayn thinks he is probably insisting on this, too. Harry is the one member One Direction can no longer do without, and Zayn wonders if he can do without Harry Styles. Harry Fucking Styles. He is so beautiful in the lights. Push/pull.

Zayn knows that his voice is probably better than Harry’s. He has songs too. They flit through his mind all day, all night, any time he’s not on stage singing the pop he has come to loathe. He still likes to hit the high notes, though, just because he can. Harry will never look at him when he does, and he likes to think he’s jealous, that he knows his voice won’t do what Zayn’s will. He adds it to the list of Harry’s flaws, a small pleasure.

* * *

Then they’re back in the UK. Zayn’s tired, and he’s resentful. It’s also Harry’s fault that he’s not as close with the other boys. On stage he has to focus on forgetting about Harry, and it’s so much work that it’s easier to stand by himself and ignore everyone, even though he loves Louis and Liam and Niall same as ever. Then after the shows he can’t go to Louis’ room or Niall’s for fear that Harry will come in or go out, so he stays in his room. He smokes pot. He smokes cigarettes. He doesn’t know why all the smoking doesn't seem to affect his voice. Maybe if he lost his voice he could quit the band. 

They get a few days off at the end of the UK leg of the tour, and he plans Perrie’s 21st birthday party after getting a reluctant ok from management to miss the last two dates of the Europe leg. And then they’re off to Europe, and at first it’s just show after show and forgetting Harry getting easier and smoking weed on his hotel room balcony, but then they get to Milan, and they have two nights at San Siro, and they’re filming, and the fans outdo themselves. 80,000 or thereabouts. 

Zayn feels cynical and jaded and older than 21, but those nights are magical. Niall keeps grabbing him, grabbing anyone,to point out some other amazing part of what the crowd has done, all the seas of Italian flags, and the Irish flag and British flag made by thousands of young girls holding up colored cards, and these girls know every word to every song, and the weather is perfect, and Zayn’s voice is perfect, and they are all giddy with it, with being One Direction and being surrounded by all this love. 

Zayn finds himself grinning at Harry, and Harry grins back at him. At the end, when all the boys come together in a group hug, he forgets to be distant. He grabs Harry’s hand, and before he can think, Harry is pulling him away, pulling him backstage to the one shower they all share, and then they’re pulling off each other’s clothes. Harry looks at him like he’s the best thing he’s seen, and Zayn looks at Harry like he wants to eat him, and they put bruises on each other with their teeth and mouths and hands. They turn the water as high as it will go, but it probably doesn’t drown out their gasps and moans, and Zayn literally passes out when he comes. When he regains consciousness, Harry is holding him up under the water, washing his face, and giving him the smile he hasn’t seen in months and months. 

He wants to cry. He wants to beg Harry to love him or at least not to leave. Instead, he makes a joke about Harry’s magical sex powers, and Harry laughs back at him before murmuring, “Are you alright now? I really need to go.” And Harry leaves Zayn in the shower, wishing he had a better memory for forgetting.

* * *

 **Early April 2015**  
Zayn intended to call Harry after he got the song snippet; he did. It was late the night he finally listened to it, and he thought it would be too late, where Harry was. Where was Harry? He thought, “I’ll wait. I’ll look up the schedule, and I’ll catch him right after a show, before he goes out. I’ll ask him why he sent this, what does it mean, now.”

But then he felt good for the first time in a long time, like he had said something important to Harry, even if it slipped out, and Harry said something important back to him, even if he didn’t mean it, and Zayn just wanted to write. He got lyrics and lyric bits down for a dozen songs, and he was noodling on the piano and on the guitar and getting high.

He would call Perrie and get her to listen, and she sometimes would harmonize with him when he had a bit of lyric and melody put together, and they sounded so good, the songs, they sounded like a record. Before he knew it it was already May, and he hadn’t texted Harry or tried to call him or anything. It was officially awkward, like how could he say anything to Harry now? He really did feel good, like 1D was something that happened to a former version of himself. That was of course too good to be true. 

Louis never could keep his mouth shut, and yeah, Zayn had been working with Naughty Boy a bit here and there, he put down the beats for “I Won’t Mind,” and even if NB did leak it, and he was furious at the time, he was glad now, because Harry heard it, and he knew it was for him, and some part of Zayn wanted Harry to know. So Louis and Shahid went at it, and then Zayn stuck his two cents in, and then he stopped himself again, because he didn’t want to do any of this. He had almost an album’s worth of music, and he’d already decided to sing in Urdu on at least one piece he’s thinking of as an interlude between the first and second halves. It was for his dad.

Zayn left for California at the end of June. He and Perrie had a talk--she had a talk with him, really--and agreed to announce their breakup in August. “I’ve sort of met someone,” Perrie confided, “I dunno if it’s anything, but it can’t be anything with us still engaged, that’s for sure. I’m dead sad about it, Zayner. I’ll miss talking to you.”

“Why can’t we still talk, Per?”

“You’re so fucking naive, Z,” she said. “This will have to be bitter, like, and it has to be your fault because you’re a villain anyway. I can’t talk to a villain!”

“Yeah, ok. Maybe later, though, yeah?”

“Yeah, ok, babe,” Perrie laughed, but it didn’t sound like she meant it. He thought that it was another ending in a year full of them.

* * *

**July 2014**  
There was Harry not speaking to him, and there was Harry in full rage mode. Zayn had been in his room packing to leave for the UK and Perrie’s birthday when the door flew open.

“What the fuck, Malik? You just take off whenever you like?”

“Harry. I cleared this a couple of months ago. It’s Perrie’s 21st. I’m throwing her a big party. I’ll miss two shows. It’s fine.” 

Zayn realized once again that after remembering for a while to forget Harry Fucking Styles he had forgotten again. “What’s it to you, anyway?”

“I have to take your fucking parts for one thing!”

“Ah. Well, I think Liam and Louis and Niall have already figured that out. Ask them if you have any questions, huh, Haz. And leave me in fucking peace, if you don’t mind.”

Harry stared at him for a few minutes. Zayn thought more was coming, but then Harry shoved him backwards onto the bed, raising Zayn’s foolish hopes for just a second, and then, in a voice dripping with disdain, sneered, “It’s always about you, isn’t it, Z, you and your fucking sensibilities. 

Something sad flickered in Harry’s eyes. “Maybe I’d like a break, too, maybe I’m sick to fuck all with constant touring and smiling and playing the fool for all these fuckers, did you ever think about that?”

No. Zayn had not. He loved Harry as a mate and as something more, and he had never thought for a second that his Baby Jagger felt like this.

“Take your fucking break. Don’t come back. We don’t need you.” With that, Harry stomped out of the room, slamming the door as he left.

Okay. All that showed Zayn is that when he and Harry were together there were two right arseholes in the room. This wasn’t really news. So it was fine.

It was fine with Perrie, too. She looked fit as fuck, just gorgeous, and whatever had started before the tour between them was still strong. His first night home they didn’t sleep at all, just fucked themselves ragged, until Perrie swore her pussy was rubbed so raw she was going to start a fire peeing, and until Zayn felt rubbed raw too, till his dick was almost purple and bruised looking, but they still managed another orgasm, just rubbing against each other. She was so small and soft. They had paparazzi at the party, and they made sure to get a few shots snogging. Zayn imagined Harry seeing them and thought it served him right for being such an arsehole.

Zayn was so sure that Harry was an arse he was better off ignoring that he forgot to stay off Twitter while he was waiting for the train back to London. His feed was blowing up with a tweet apparently Harry had deleted but not fast enough. It read:

‘So kiss him again, just to prove to me you can..’

Zayn quit Twitter, closed his phone case, and sat on the terminal bench. His stomach twisted itself into a now familiar knot that Zayn had started calling his Haznot. He got it when he thought about Harry, especially when he was supposed to be forgetting him, but he also got it every time Harry did something that made it seem like he cared. Or maybe when he just couldn’t leave Zayn alone. Harry Fucking Styles. And now they were on break, and he wouldn’t see him again until August.

* * *

**August 2014**  
Things hadn’t changed much, Zayn reflected, as they finished the sound check for opening night of leg three, except that his Haznot was permanently lodged in his esophagus. He had trouble eating anything solid. He didn’t even feel like smoking very much. He was too thin; Lou tsked at him as she muttered about having to take in all his pants.

Louis came in as he was trying to avoid being poked with safety pins. 

“So. Been online at all today? Might find something interesting. Seems our boy wrote a song that he gave to Ariana Grande. Look it up.”

Louis popped back up to head out before looking over his shoulder for a parting shot: “And also, Z? Snap out of it. You look like your fucking dog died, and you and Haz just need to talk for once.” 

He sniffed. “Jesus. He and I got sorted in about a week, and you two have been moping around each other for months. It’s embarrassing.”

Without waiting to hear Zayn’s response, Louis flounced out the door. Entirely too much drama for one band, Zayn thought, but he wasn’t completely wrong. He should read the article. A second later, his phone pinged.

Tommo: you 2 will break up the band sort it the fuck out

Tommo: https://www.bustle.com/articles/36521-harry-styles-wrote-ariana-grandes-a-little-bit-of-your-heart-directioners-wont-let-you

Zayn clicked on the link. He listened to the song. He pondered. Yeah, ok. He should talk to Harry.

Zayn didn’t find Harry until after the show. He was, as usual, wired and high as a kite off performing, but he stopped when Zayn touched his arm. “Haz. Can we talk?”

“What about?”

“Was it for me? Did you write that song for me?”

“What if I did? What difference does it make?”

“Did you fucking mean it?”

“Yeah, of course I meant it! Why would I write it if I didn’t?”

“Then, don’t go out. Come back to the hotel with me. Let’s….” Zayn lifted his shoulders in a shrug. He wasn’t sure about this, but Louis was right, they were fucking up the band. They needed to talk, or something. Probably something.

Harry gazed at him for a long second, his eyes very clear in the reflection of the lights still left burning on stage.

“Yeah. I’ll come to yours. In about an hour. Order some food. I’m starving."

* * *

When Zayn was back in Bradford with his family, surrounded by the people who loved him unreservedly, he allowed himself to think about the last six weeks of the tour. He and Harry had resumed whatever it was they were doing. It showed on stage as Harry was as wild and abandoned in his movements as he ever had been, but they made patterns with Zayn at the center. Zayn learned, finally, to wait quietly, wait for Harry to return to him, knowing that he would. 

Zayn knew that his vision wasn't clear with Harry, but he was still sure that he had never been more beautiful. He had been cute when they met, but now he was almost too beautiful to look at. For some reason, Harry seemed to feel the same about Zayn. He would whisper to Zayn, “You gorgeous fucker. In, let’s see, one hour and forty-five minutes I’m going to have my tongue planted in your ass.” 

Zayn couldn’t help it. His eyes slammed shut no matter what he willed them to do. His cock stirred, and he tried to think of his father, of praying at the mosque, of a homeless man he saw outside of the Tube in London whose smell went on for days.

Then with an evil grin and a squeeze to his bum, Harry would be off again, to sing his solo or to spray water high in the air. It was a giddy time. It lasted all the way until the end of Where We Are. Zayn fell back into it, the flirting on stage, the looks, the touches, everything that built up the tension between them until they could find release, which was why it was so hard to understand when Harry said goodbye, see you in a couple of months, and that was that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're reading this, we're almost at the end! Just keeping the timeline straight in my head has been a ride. I feel anxious to finish chapter 5 because SO MUCH IS REVEALED. As always, comments are crack and kudos are fine wine. I know we all have versions of Harry (especially Harry) in our heads. I have used the little I know about the real person and a lot of my own imagination to create "Harry Styles," which I hope you will bear in mind especially in last chapter.


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zayn leaves One Direction. It's not really the end, though. As always, this is a work of fiction. As far as I know, Harry Styles and Zayn Malik spoke for the last time in Hong Kong in March of 2015, and they haven't spoken since. Yeah, right. TW for this chapter only: very light BDSM, brief mention of daddy kink

_And, yes, I let you use me from the day that we first met_

_But I'm not done yet_

_Falling for your fool's gold_

_And I knew that you turned it on for everyone you me_

_But I don't regret_

_Falling for your fool's gold_

** October 2014**

****

Zayn wasn’t well. The anxiety that hovered around the edges of his consciousness whenever he performed moved into his mind, took up residence, and began to send out orders to his stomach to knot up permanently, whether Harry was in front of him, on his mind, or a distant memory. It dictated he couldn’t sleep, so many nights on the road seemingly fucking with his circadian rhythms. He refused to go to the States for their commitments in November. He had a blowup with Paul.

It meant that he needed Harry more than anyone. He needed him to ask, “Hey, you ok?” and sling an arm around his shoulder so that he could lean into him, feel his size and reassuring strength. And yet he could not open his mouth to call him or text him or send up a smoke signal. He couldn’t go home to Bradford because he knew his mum would take one look at him and call a doctor. He couldn’t call Perrie because she was on tour and FaceTime was useless.

A month passed in agony before Zayn broke down and texted Harry. He made several tries at lighthearted before giving up and laying out what he needed, his desperation overriding any reluctance he had at speaking so openly.

i need you i know ur in us but can you come to mine sometime b4 too long

A couple of hours later, Harry replied. 

in la can head back in a week will text u when i am in london

Zayn felt a mix of shame and relief that Harry would just come without asking any questions. Maybe he had underestimated him? Anyway. Eight days, maybe, before he’d be back in London. Maybe nine, since he had no idea if he woke Harry up in the middle of the night or what flight he would be on. It didn’t matter. He was coming.

* * *

It was 16 November before Zayn got the text he had been waiting for. It was exactly eight days before the AMAs, and Zayn wasn’t sure he could go but equally sure he could not not go.

im on the way in from airport do u want me smelly and jetlagged if u dont care i’m on my way

I dont care just come now

Harry knew his gate code, always had done, so Zayn used the time to shower himself, to wash his hair, to put on clean clothes, because as pathetic as he was he didn’t want to be disgusting.

He opened the door to Harry’s light knock. Harry didn’t say anything, just fixed his attention on Zayn, taking in his pallor, his gauntness, the panic Zayn knew his eyes revealed. He dropped his bag, opened his arms, and Zayn fell into them gratefully.

A week wasn’t much, but Harry ordered groceries in, cooked for them, healthy meals, made Zayn drink green protein shakes that he found disgusting, slept in Zayn’s bed, showered with him, washing his hair and back and feet, moisturized his skin with La Mer face cream, and kept him wrapped in blankets or heavy jumpers. 

He didn’t talk much, nor did he ask Zayn any questions. He didn’t complain about whatever he was missing in LA. He rubbed circles into Zayn’s back the first three nights until Zayn relaxed enough to feel drowsy. The fourth night he whispered, “Are you going to talk about it?”

“I don’t know what to say, Haz. It’s my fault Paul left. Toward the end of the tour, he caught me smoking bud like ten times, and he told me he had had it with my bullshit, and I said something like fuck you you’re not my dad. He looked so fucking hurt. I know he quit last week, and I know it was my fault. I can’t do this much longer. I’m so fucking unhappy.”

Harry gently tugged on Zayn’s right shoulder until he was lying on his back, and then again on his left until he was facing Harry. Zayn was afraid to look, but when at last he did, Harry’s gaze, always so clear and direct, was soft. “Is that what’s been making you anxious?”

“It wasn’t just you. Z, he’s over 40. Think about how hard our schedule is on us, and we’re young. It takes a toll. He got married. His wife wanted him at home. Yeah, you didn’t help anything, but I think he was looking for an excuse.”

“Nah, he never would have left--”

Harry surprised him by pressing soft kisses on his forehead, the tip of his nose, both cheekbones, and finally on his mouth. 

“Babe. If this is bothering you so much, text him and say sorry. You always get yourself all worked up. You always did that over me, like, worry that I was going to fall off the stage or swallow my gum or get us both caught snogging. And nothing ever happened!”

“That’s not true, H. You hurt yourself several times. You almost caught yourself on fire. Jesus, somebody needs to worry about you.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t have to be you every time. You’re a year older than me. Remember when you used to pull for me?” Harry snorted at the memory. “I was literally having girls throw their panties at me onstage, but you made sure I was getting laid.”

“Ok, maybe I underestimated the Styles charm, but I’m not wrong about how fucking clumsy you are.”

“Nah, you’ve always been right about that, but somebody always catches me, or I always get up after I fall, don’t I? Worrying hasn’t kept any of that away.”

Harry stroked Zayn’s hair then and scratched his scalp the way he always used to like Zayn to do to him. “Want me to suck you off, babe? That always does a boy good, yeah?”

“I don’t want your pity suck, H. I’ve been taking meds for anxiety, anyway…..”

“Un huh, like you’ve ever had pity sex in your life, you gorgeous fucker. You looked like shit when I got here, but I would have done you on the spot.” Harry snapped his fingers. “On the spot, no questions asked.”

Zayn laughed a little. “Yeah, I’ll take your offer and raise you. You know I have a praise kink, H. I could most def do you right now too. Unlike me you walked in looking great, and anyway you’re hot even when you have a cold and sneeze all over me. You’re hot even when you vomit.”

“And I was believing every word. Bridge too far, Zayner. Lay back and let me take care of you.”

Zayn did. He lay on his back, and he let Harry slip his tongue in his mouth for the sweetest kiss they had exchanged in maybe ever, let him suck on his earlobes and neck, pinch his nipples while whispering, “Still have a little pain kink to go with that praise kink, pretty baby?”

“Yeah, Haz, still got all the kinks. You bring ‘em out in me, to be honest. You always have.” His eyes misted over a little at that one. He had missed this tenderness more than he let himself know or remember. In the midst of forgetting Harry Styles, he had forgotten why he loved him. It made it all the more difficult when he was reminded.

And Harry spent a long time on Zayn, working him over gently but firmly, tonguing his hole, licking his balls, leaving and returning to his cock until it had been hard so long it hurt, until he begged for release. 

“What do you need, Z? What do you want me to do? Tell me.”

“Suck my cock, Haz. Please. Suck me until I come.”

“Those are the magic words, babe. I’m gonna take care of you now. I’m gonna suck the come right out of you and drink it down, yeah? You relax. Think about my ass. You’ve always liked it so much.” Harry chuckled as he brought his incredible mouth down over Zayn, and for a while Zayn thought of nothing at all.

* * *

It was a respite, is what it was. They didn’t leave until 23 November, the day before they had to be in LA for the American Music Awards, and Zayn felt a peace he hadn’t felt in months, like a week with Harry was better for him than a month of rest. 

When they stood on the red carpet, Harry arranged himself next to Zayn. He leaned into Zayn, just a bit forward from him, and let his hand dangle close to Zayn’s. He could feel Harry’s rings brush against the back of his hand, and they seemed to be promising that he was there for Zayn. They stayed in LA that night while the rest of the band flew to Sydney for yet another awards show, because of course. Harry pled an earache to give them that one night together. They claimed to have spent it partying, and no one seemed to notice they weren’t seen out anywhere. They were at Harry’s LA place, Zayn with his face in the pillows and his ass in the air, getting fucked into the mattress. Harry’s hand between his shoulder blades felt like an anchor tethering him to sanity.

Back in London, when they were on the Graham Norton Show, Graham evidently thought that Zayn had looked good enough at the AMAs that he teased him with fan tweets exclaiming over how good Zayn had looked with a lock of hair falling over his forehead. He was able to laugh with all of them, and Niall nudged him with an elbow and a relieved grin, like everything was ok now. It was, sort of. Zayn didn’t think about what was coming up in a few weeks, because he definitely could not do another tour and yet another tour was starting whether he could do it or not.

Zayn finally went home to the family, and when he said goodbye to Harry neither mentioned the future. Harry seemed preoccupied--Zayn would learn later why--but he felt so guilty about taking up all his time and attention that he didn’t ask why. He let him go with a “see you in a month or so.”

It was good to be home, better than a while, all the way through Christmas Day, when they “celebrated” by overindulging the girls in gifts. He thought he might get a text from Harry, but when one didn’t come, he sent a simple one:

Happy holidays, Z. xx

He didn’t hear anything back and then he learned why. Safaa, a Harry stan if there ever was, told him excitedly the day after Christmas, “Zayn! Harry’s on a ski trip with Kendall Jenner! She is so pretty! Have you met her? Have you seen the pics on Kendall’s Instagram?”

He muttered something noncommittal while his mind reminded him of all the reasons he was supposed to forget Harry Styles. Harry could be generous and sweet and loving, but in the long run of it Zayn was a mate and an occasional fuck. He was a fool to think otherwise. 

* * *

On January 2, immediately after Zayn got back into London, the tears started. He supposed they were a good sign, something releasing, but they didn’t stop for three days. Zayn counted. He had weed delivered, but smoking wasn’t helping either. He thought about texting Haz, but under the circumstances he knew he couldn’t do it. He hadn’t seen Perrie, but he couldn’t make himself call her. He couldn’t make himself do anything again. 

He had a week, and then the whole goddam race started again. Rehearsals and fittings started January 10 for the On the Road Again tour, playing stadiums of 20,000-40,000 fans a night. Hit your high notes, Zayn. Act like you mean it.

He knew he was rapidly reaching the end of his rope. Still, he showed up. He owed it to Harry, for taking good care of him, for leaving whatever he had going in LA to come when he asked, even probably leaving Kendall behind. Zayn did interviews, although he was quieter than ever, he rehearsed with the boys, he got measured for a new tour wardrobe and found he had lost another inch in the waist, in spite of the time with H. Harry was friendly, and there was something...more, something else in his eyes that asked questions Zayn couldn’t interpret. There wasn’t time to ask, if he had been inclined, but the paralysis that had only been broken by desperation had descended again. He supposed that he seemed cold, and he was, shaking with it.

* * *

**February 2015**

Zayn saw the management doctor before they left for Sydney. “I need something to help me sleep,” he told him. “My anxiety is really bad right now. I don’t think I can get on the plane to Sydney without it.” He got a prescription for Xanax and promised himself he’d take it for the first time on the long flight. He got sixty, enough to last through the first leg, the doctor told him, and more than he should try to take into most Asian countries with their draconian drug laws. “Make them last,” the doctor told them. He meant to do it, too.

But he started taking the pills a few nights before they left. They worked, sort of, and then Zayn thought he should probably take one in the morning to smooth him out during the day. Once the tour started, he was taking two or three during the day, every day. They allowed him to go on stage, but they made him a zombie. In a matter of days he knew he wasn’t going to complete the tour. He couldn’t do it. He had to tell Haz first.

He knew Harry was planning to spend some time in LA on their break in early March and that there would an end of tour party the last night in Japan. He caught Harry before he got too drunk, although he was drunk enough. “Haz, can I speak with you?”

“Babe! Of course you can!” Harry dropped his voice. “Wanna go back to the hotel? It’s kind of our tradition. Wouldn’t want to break with it now.”

“Yeah, right, just give me a thumbs up when you’re ready.”

An hour later, Harry was drunk and handsy in the car back to the hotel. “You gonna let me fuck you tonight, babe,” Harry slurred into his ear. “I want it. Been thinking about it ever since you said you were ready to go. Feel.” He placed Zayn’s hand over his half-hard cock. Zayn couldn’t stop himself; he jerked his hand away.

“Haz, you better hear what I have to say first.” With that, he didn’t look at Harry again until they were escorted up the service elevator and into Zayn’s room. He was so desperate to get the words out that he barely let the door close behind them.

“Haz, I’m leaving the tour.”

“What? You need a few days off? Yeah they won’t like it, but you’ve been ill, everybody knows it, it’ll be fine. How long do you think?”

“You’re not listening, Haz. I’m not going to come back. I can’t do this anymore.” He saw Harry open his mouth, no doubt to make promises or offer reassurances, maybe to offer sex like that had ever solved anything for them. 

“No, Haz. Don’t say anything. It’s not good the way we are, but it’s not that. I hate everything about what we’re doing. I can’t keep up with the pace of it. I hate the music. I hate the noise, all the screaming fucking girls, all the shit that gets thrown on stage. I hate watching you work the crowd. It makes me feel worse, because you are absolutely born for this, Haz. This is your thing, but it’s not mine. It’s never been mine.” 

Zayn took a breath. This was probably the longest speech he’d made to Harry in months.

“Zayn. I know. I’m sick of it, too. We just have another album after this next one, which is already mostly done, and then I’ll walk with you. Jeff will take you on, I’m sure of it. We can make the music we want. You just have to hang in a little longer.”

“No, Harry. I can’t do it. I can’t do two more albums. I haven’t had a song on an album, not one that was just mine, ever. It’s all Louis and Liam, and I fucking hate their songs.” Even as he said it, he knew he was being unfair, and Harry protested immediately.

“No you don’t, what about--”

“It doesn’t matter, H. I can’t do it anymore. I just….I can’t.”

“No. Zayn. I’ll help you get through it. I know I haven’t been very, I haven’t really been present for you, I have a hard time expressing myself but I care about you so much. You make it possible for me to stay in the band. I love Niall, but I’m going to kill Liam or Louis one of these days soon. But I look at you, and I think, fuck, if Zayn can do it, I can too.”

To Zayn’s horror, Harry’s eyes filled with tears, and Zayn did what he always did, what he had done ever since he met his Baby Jagger at 16. He rushed to him, to hug him and comfort him, and make him empty promises. He let Harry press him into the mattress, and if this time his eyes filled with tears, he hid them in the pillow. 

Harry whispered promises in between the filth he always murmured into Zayn’s ear, and Zayn tried not to listen. But it was Haz, H, his Harry, telling him, “Zayn, you’re so beautiful. You feel so good to me right now. I’d rather fuck you than any girl. I’ll take care of you. We’ll sleep together like we used to do. You won’t regret staying, babe. I’ll see to it.” Zayn would try.

He went to Thailand for the short ten days off, alone, and he went wild with the stupidity of everything he had done since leaving Japan. He wanted Harry, and he didn’t have him. He wanted the tour to be over for him, but he had promised he would see Harry in Singapore. He didn’t know what else to do besides get high and fuck all the beautiful Thais he could find, men and women. The time passed in a blur.

* * *

The show in Singapore was torture. Zayn was hungover from days of substance abuse, and he felt guilty about all the sex, even though he was pretty sure Harry had gone back to LA to see Kendall. He didn’t want to talk to him, so this time he kept a band member between him and Harry during sound check and during the show. When Harry came to his room after the show, he pretended to be half asleep.

“Yeah, mind if we just cuddle tonight, babe? I’m worn out from all that time off.” He tried a weak chuckle, but immediately saw it as a bad effort and shut it down. “Ok, Haz?”

“Yeah, of course. Whatever you need, babe. I’m just glad you came back. I was worried, Z. I know you keep your promises though.”

That was emotional blackmail, wasn’t it? Zayn had rarely made promises. Neither had Harry. It was part of why things stayed so fucked up between them, because they never talked about anything, much less made promises. But Zayn didn’t want to stir the pot, and he regulated his breathing to Harry’s until finally the sound of their breath in unison lulled him to sleep, as surprising as that was.

The next day Zayn knew he couldn’t wait any longer. They were all going to fly together to Bangkok on a private plane, which would be the first time the five of them had been in the same space in a while. Zayn might have wondered at this, had he not been so wrapped up in his own misery. He might have wondered what had happened to the friendships that had been so strong if he hadn’t had his head up Harry’s ass. Nothing to be done for it now.

He took a deep breath, promised himself he wouldn’t break down, and started. “Lads, I have something to say, and I need you all to listen. I’ve already spoken with Simon about this, and it’s not an arguable point. Hong Kong’s going to be my last show. I’m leaving the tour and the band. I can’t do it anymore. I’m sorry. I know it will fuck everything up for you, but you’ve had to cover for me before. You’ll be fine, and we all know that I’m not essential.”

“That’s utter bullshit, Z,” Niall protested. “There’s not one of us that can hit your notes. There’s not one of us who looks out for all the others the way you always have.”

“Well. That last part hasn’t been true for a while if we’re honest,” Louis muttered. “Do what you need to do, Zayn. You haven’t been there for us in ages.”

“Fuck that, Louis, shut up!” Harry shouted. “I can’t do this without Zayn. Zayn, you promised. You said you’d stay until the end of the tour!”

Everyone talked at once after that, since it was not good that Harry had known about this, and then Harry started crying for real, and then they all fell into their old roles of comforting the baby, and the short flight to Thailand ended. That night was their worst show ever.

Harry didn’t come to Zayn’s room that night. He waited, because tonight of all nights he wanted, he needed to be with him. Zayn knew he didn’t deserve it, but he wanted Harry’s blessing. He wanted his body next to him. He wouldn’t be able to sleep at all without it.

They were the only guests at a high-end bed and breakfast, so Zayn figured Harry being Harry he hadn’t locked his door. He threw on a pair of track pants to walk over to the next building where Harry’s room had been assigned. He found his steps quickening in anxiety at the thought of how Harry would greet him. Would he speak to him? Would he forgive him? At last he found himself in the humid night outside Harry’s room, where in his impatience he couldn’t wait for Harry to open the door. He could see a light was on. Zayn let himself into the room, where he was met with a sight he couldn’t process.

Harry was naked. The man with him, older by at least a decade, was fully dressed, and he was holding Harry on the lap of his tailored trousers. Zayn could see the glimmer of his diamond wedding ring all the way from the door.

“Who’s a naughty naughty boy hmmm? Who’s been fucking around on Daddy every night for weeks?”

“I am, Daddy. I’m the naughty boy. I’ve been doing bad things.”

“What happens to naughty boys, Harry?”

The words came out half strangled, but Zayn, sickened, heard the arousal in them.

“They get….oh!...punished. Harder, Daddy!”

Zayn thought he knew the man. For a minute as he stood with one hand on the doorknob and the other over his mouth, he thought that he was sleepwalking. Did Harry believe that Zayn wouldn’t indulge his kinks? Did he not trust him? Of course he didn’t. That was painfully clear. The sounds of the flat of the man’s palm slapping against Harry’s beautiful rounded bum contrasted obscenely with Zayn’s harsh breathing behind his own palm. 

“More, Daddy. I’ve been so bad. Harder!”

“You’re a slag, aren’t you baby? I can feel your dick already getting hard, dirty boy…”

Finally whatever had frozen Zayn to the door released him, and the gasp he had been holding in released as well. The well dressed man and Harry both stopped short and turned to look at the door.

Zayn saw Harry’s eyes widen, and that was the last he saw of Harry Fucking Styles that night.

He just made it back to his own room before the water he had had earlier came up as acid. He hoped, viciously, that it would dissolve the Haznot he’d been living with for too long. Five minutes later, he heard Harry knocking on the door.

“Zayn, I can’t talk very loud. I don’t want everyone to hear me. I’m sorry. I should have told you about this. It’s nothing. It keeps me calm. This is hard for me too. I can’t smoke because of my asthma, so this is what I do to cope. I need it, Zayn. I should have asked you to give it to me, but, Zayn, please let me in. Please talk to me.”

Zayn didn’t know how long Harry was at his door. He went into the bathroom, turned the shower on full blast, and sat on the shower floor crying until the water ran completely cold. When he came out, Harry was gone.

They got through the show in Hong Kong. Zayn cried a little, but not for Harry. He cried for the boy he had been, full of hope and happiness. He cried for all the ways he had fucked up his life, and he cried for the man he had fallen in love with. Harry would never even know how he felt.

**August 2015**

Zayn, like Harry, didn’t hold a grudge. He never had done, not even with Naughty Boy. He had let Harry know how he felt, in the only way he knew how, and Harry had done the same for him, in the way he knew how. If they were still not speaking, it was just them, the way they would rather die alone than admit to having feelings. Zayn like Harry always preferred to show how he felt, and he no longer was mad for what Harry did to manage his own anxiety. He knew he had his own problems to deal with, and maybe finally he hadn’t contacted Harry after hearing the bit of “If I Could Fly” because he knew he was too broken to offer Harry anything.

He worked on the songs that had been in his head and in his notebook. He found a producer. He was introduced to Gigi Hadid, a beautiful model, half Pakistani like him. He liked her. She confessed on their first date to being bi, and he told her a bit about Harry. 

“Well,” she had said that first night, “We better not fall in love, but we make a good pair, don’t we? Shall we date and see what happens? Are you and Harry over?”

He liked Gigi’s forthrightness very much. “I don’t know if we’ll ever be really over. We never got, like, closure?” he admitted. “But yeah, the chances of us being anything other than strangers are probably smaller than my little finger nail.” He held up his finger to illustrate and smiled the most genuine smile he’d had on his face in some time.

His producer Malay told him that 1D had a new single out. “Wanna give it a listen, man? It’s not bad.”

It wasn’t bad. Zayn liked it, liked the rock vibe of it, liked the sound of Harry’s voice, Harry doing the falsetto, his part; it felt Harry was caressing him with his voice, finally looking up when Zayn sang. He couldn’t help himself. He knew it was wrong, after so much time, but he did it anyway. He tweeted:

Proud of my boys the new single is sick.  
Big love. :) x

He could afford to be generous now, yeah? His record had a name now, _Mind of Mine_ , and he liked the mellifluous sound of the title, the way the Ms led and the Ns followed. Harry permeated every song, even the ones that weren’t about him. Malay wrote some parts of a couple of the tunes, but he felt Harry in those, too, felt him whispering in his ear, telling him, “Zayn, you’re so good, you’re so beautiful, your voice can make me come, sing to me, Zayn,” and for the first time in a long time he ached for Harry. They were both in America, even if Harry was somewhere out on the road. Zayn had stopped Googling him, stopped opening his Twitter, but he thought that even if he never heard another word from Harry Styles he would always know more or less where he was.

* * *

**January 2016**

It was cold as fuck in New York City. He and Gigi had tired of waiting for the car that was supposed to come to take them shopping at Barney’s, so they had foolishly decided to walk a bit until they could hail a cab. It wasn’t surprising, with his head down against the wind whipping against it, that he walked straight into a man whose shape felt familiar. 

“Fuck, sorry man, I had my head d--” Harry Fucking Styles. What were the chances?

Zayn felt the smile that spread across his face involuntarily. Damn, but Harry looked great. He was wearing a wool coat in a dark green that made his eyes pop, and he looked healthy and happy. “What are you doing in New York?”

“Man, I live here in Tribeca. Well, I live here part of the time anyway.” Harry waited expectantly.

“Oh! Sorry, yeah. You’ve met Gigi, I think? Gigi, this is Harry Styles.”

“Oh, I know who you are, and I know quite a bit about you, Mr. Harry Styles, enough that I’m going back to the apartment. Z, talk to your ‘friend’ and call me later, ok?”

With her customary quickness with a decision, a quality Zayn had always admired, Gigi turned around and headed back into the wind.

“Shall we duck into the nearest bar? Or a coffee place? There’s a good one of each within a block.”

“Yeah, it’s New York City, Haz. I’d like that. After you.”

It was better to see Harry than Zayn could have anticipated. All the angst of the past year seemed like a distant memory. They both agreed a bar might be a better choice, under the circumstances. It was cold enough that there were no photographers out, so it seemed that he and Harry would have a bit of time to talk. In a New York bar, nobody looked twice at celebrities, and anyway Zayn’s favorite bar in the neighborhood had a small private room in back that he’d used before and asked for now.

Once they were settled over Japanese whiskey, with a rueful look at the memories anything to do with Japan brought back, Zayn started.

“Harry, I’m sorry I didn’t contact you after you contacted me. I was a right mess at the time, and I knew that you knew, that you had heard “I Won’t Mind” and knew it was for you. I knew you were writing that song for me, too. I wasn’t ready to say anything else.”

“I understood, Z. I don’t think I even expected you to contact me. I just wanted to answer you. I’m glad you knew it was for you.”

“I would have thought that anybody would know, but people see what they want to see, don’t they?”

“That’s what we pay the publicists for, yeah?” They both laughed at that, and then sat there for a minute grinning at each other.

“'Perfect' was kind of for you too. I know everybody thought it was for Taylor, but wtf, Z, we dated for a month four years ago. That girl can milk a relationship for all it’s worth. 'Olivia' was yours too.”

“Olivia is a girl!”

“You were a pretty girl, Z, prettier than most of the women I’ve dated!” Harry protested. 

“That’s alright, Haz. I want you to know that my album’s coming out soon, but the first single will be out at the end of this month, and no matter what anyone says it’s about you.” He looked directly into Harry’s eyes, willing him to see what he couldn’t say, that all was forgiven and that he loved him as much as he ever had.

“Really? I’m flattered. I thought you would have forgotten me by now.”

“No you didn’t, you narcissist. You would have thought it was about you, more like. Like anyone could ever forget Harry Fucking Styles.” He smiled again, delighted to have walked right into Harry in this city of eight and a half million. Maybe that’s the way it would always be with him and Harry.

“I didn’t really think you would have forgotten me, because how could you? I can’t forget you either. I’ll never forget you. I’m sorry I never followed up after I dropped that bomb on you with ‘If I Could Fly.’”

“Harry Styles, drama queen.” They smiled at each other again.

“Harry?”

“Yeah, Z, what is it?”

“I’m with Gigi now, and she’s great, she really is, but we’re not, like, it’s not a PR relationship like Perrie was, but it’s not love either. I just need you to know that now isn’t right, but maybe someday will be. For us, I mean. Do you think that ever? That we could ever have a real relationship?”

“Yeah, Z. I do. You’re the only person who ever really got under my skin, you know? Besides family of course.”

They didn’t say anything else about it, that day, but they stayed in that private room through two more whiskies and a fair amount of laughter and reminiscing. It felt to Zayn like something broken stitched itself together. The sun set. Harry called a car and offered to drop Zayn off at his apartment. They hugged when they stood up, and Zayn felt a momentary pang at the feel of Harry’s body against his.

The few blocks to Zayn’s apartment passed in a matter of a few minutes. He stepped out of the car, saying his goodbye, but then turned one last time to look into Harry’s clear gaze.

“Haz, I’d like to keep in touch, if that’s ok?” Harry nodded. “My number is still the same, so text me and then I’ll have yours, yeah?” Harry nodded again and smiled deep enough to show his beautiful dimples.

“And can this just be for us, like, out of the media and private?”

“Yeah, Z. The only person more private than you are is probably me, so yeah. As far as the world is concerned, I hate your guts, and I hope you hate mine too.”

“Ok, then. Text me, yeah? I’ve got some sick new art I’d like you to see.”

“I’d like that, Zayner. It was really great to see you, and now you’re letting in all the cold air, so fuck off ok?”

Zayn laughed again, something he had been doing with a lovely frequency all afternoon. “Yeah, alright, Haz. I’ll be fucking off. Talk to you later.”

He stood for a minute in the cold and watched the taillights fade into the night. Harry Fucking Styles. He turned to go into his building and to Gigi, feeling more like himself than he had since he was a kid in Bradford.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I had a lovely time writing this. What a luxury to spend so much time with these boys and to leave them with something like a happy ending. I am thinking of a sequel, at least maybe after I write the story of the Met Gala, which is currently noodling around in my brain. Thanks for reading and for being tolerant of a first-time fic writer. As always, kudos are crack and comments are like fine wine, or however I usually say that. Until next time, dear reader.

**Author's Note:**

> If you’ve made it this far, I’d love to know what you think, especially long term Directioners. I started shipping Zarry because of both their solo work so if I’ve gotten facts, such as we have them, wrong I want to hear. Thanks for reading about our beautiful boys, and hopefully you enjoyed something non-AU.


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